Lord of My Dreams
by Ai Tennshi
Summary: Through an accident of fate, the gang is reincarnated in the modern day, their memories of their former lives in tact. But somehow, Rin can remember infinite past lives...and through each life, the man she loves has been by her side. Canon-compliant AU.
1. Prologue: The End

_Author's Note: This is an idea that I've had for years—over half a decade by now. It started when I woke up one morning after having a really strange dream about being a little girl, abused and cold in the winter, who was invited out of the cold by a man I loved. It was a vivid dream, and I remembered the man's face from somewhere, but couldn't place it. Later that day, I watched the episode about Kikyou and Inuyasha's past, and the story was heartbreaking. As I moved to turn off the TV after watching the episode, I suddenly thought back to my dream…and this idea just clicked. Suddenly, I had the entire plot outlined in my head._

_Of course, this was long before Inuyasha had ended. So originally, the premise of this story was going to be very different. It would have been a non-canon final battle and Kikyou's actions at that battle that would have comprised the prologue. I even had that prologue all written out. But as I procrastinated on writing the story, time went by and Inuyasha ended. Now, with most key points of the story written (yes, I'm not writing it in order), I figured that I might as well change the premise to match the end of the manga and get around to publishing it. So, it is now compliant with canon. I hope you enjoy, and tell me what you think!_

**Lord of my Dreams**

**Prologue : The End**

The year was 1502.

"Today's the day," said Rin the moment she opened her eyes. Her voice was thick with sleep and the words were somewhat slurred, but Kaede heard nevertheless.

"That it is, child," she chuckled. Rin grinned and sat up.

"You know that you're always welcome here." Rin turned to see Sango in the corner. A pang of regret struck her at how kind Sango was being.

After a moment's hesitation, Rin opened her mouth. "About Kohaku…"

Sango laughed, cutting her off with a wave of the hand. "He's young," she said. "He's more mature than most boys his age, but he's still a young man. I promise: he'll get over it soon enough. Maybe you'll even get to be friends again."

Rin smiled. That sounded perfect.

"It is a shame though," sighed Miroku, entering the hut. "He left you here so you would get over your fear of humans and have a choice."

Rin blinked. "Why is it a shame? I'm glad I'm not scared of people anymore."

Miroku looked like he would argue some more, but Sango threw a ladle at his head, and he shrugged sheepishly and said no more.

"Is it past dawn?" said Rin suddenly, realizing that everyone else was up and about. "I slept in! Wait, Sesshoumaru-sama isn't here yet? Why?"

"I'm sure that he just got a little delayed," assured Kagome from the doorway, behind Miroku.

"He's _never_ delayed," said Rin crossly at the same time as Kaede said, "Do you all really need to crowd in here at once?"

The conversation ended when unified screams outside the hut rose into the air. However, more than anything it was the inclusion of children's screams among the chaos outside that sent Sango, Miroku and Kagome catapulting out of the hut with Kaede and Rin not far behind.

Inuyasha was already there, frantically trying to find all the children and take them away from the huge, perfectly spherical black cloud that was hovering at the level of the top of the trees, perfectly over the village.

"No," said Kaede, her face pale with fear.

"Kaede-baachan, is this…" Rin's voice was little more than a whisper.

"Yes, child."

"Then there's no hope. We'll all be dead in minutes."

"Yes."

"But there must be something we can do!" Giving up was not an option as far as Rin was concerned—especially not today. Today was the day when she was supposed to rejoin her Sesshoumaru-sama, to remain by his side for the rest of her life. She couldn't die before that. "What about the spell? The reincarnation spell!"

"Child, I told you, that-"

"We're all dead anyway!" cried Rin. "You're a priestess, Kagome's a priestess, and I at least have some training! With the three of us together, maybe…"

She didn't wait for Kaede to respond. She ran into the chaos, finding Kagome clutching the lifeless body of her two-year-old.

"Come!"

Kagome shook her head. Her face was dry, but her eyes empty. "It's hopeless."

"There's the reincarnation spell! Just _come!_"

Kagome looked up, but it seemed to Rin that she did not see anything. "What for? It can't reincarnate those who have already died."

Rin took Kagome by the shoulder. "It's all lost if you give up now. Just bring his body—maybe you'll give birth to him again, the same little boy!"

"It doesn't work like-"

"You don't know that, because it's never been tried before!"

"It's been tried. No one's succeeded."

"Of course they haven't, the spell kills you, and everyone's afraid to die at the last moment! But we're going to die anyway so we've got nothing to lose and there're three of us, so _come!_"

To Rin's utmost surprise, Kagome got to her feet and mutely proceeded to stumble her way towards Kaede, who was setting out the incense.

Rin ran about and gathered Inuyasha, Miroku and Sango, trying to be as soothing as possible without being cruel while still getting them all to come with her and _quickly_.

Soon Inuyasha, Miroku and Sango were at the center of the circle; the six dead children's bodies too, cradled delicately by their parents.

Rin did most of the scattering of ashes around the area in which they sat. She worried that the grief would lessen Kaede and Kagome's spiritual power, but as they began to chant she saw that this was not the case at all. If any thing, their power had been strengthened by this utmost loss which made them more desperate than ever to succeed in their endeavor.

Rin's mind suddenly turned to her lord Sesshoumaru. It had suddenly occurred to her that he would not be included in the reincarnation spell—she would never see him again. And yet here she was, executing an idea that had been begun by the thought that she wanted to live to see him again. What good was living if he was lost to her for good?

She turned her thoughts to the children. She would do this for their sake.

Steeling her heart, Rin joined hands with Kagome and Kaede, and joined in on the incantation.

Nevertheless, her last thought was that she only wished she could have seen her lord one more time. None of them noticed the toad stumbling into the circle as they completed the incantation.

* * *

Far away, a demon lord woke from a deep slumber to realize that it was past dawn. This puzzled him, for he hardly slept at all, let alone overslept.

He had a promise to keep, so he cast aside the question for later. Rin would be worrying, as he had not shown up at dawn. He set out towards the village as fast as possible, a strange foreboding filling his veins. He shook off the thought, for nothing logical supported it.

Half way there, when he suddenly felt all his strength leave him, he fell to the ground knowing he was dying without the faintest idea as to why. As the world went dark, he thought of Rin.


	2. Chapter 0: The Beginning

_Author's Note: Even though I have a great deal of this story already written, I want to update a chapter at a time in order to be able to respond to feedback, as well as to pace myself. But it occurs to me that the prologue by itself gives the reader little or no idea what this story is about, so I'll add the beginning as well._

_For the record—if you read my profile, you will notice that there is another story titled "Rewind, Play, Repeat" which would serve as a prequel to this. I have the events of that story planned out, though I have little or no intention of writing that story at present. I am trying to structure this story so that I don't need to explain in author's notes the events of that story, but please tell me in a review if I am too vague about some event (though, of course, there will be times when I am deliberately vague about events in order to elaborate on them later in the story). Remember, this is a story that's been in the works for six years—so I'm that much starved for feedback. Please review!  
_

**Lord of My Dreams**

**Chapter 0: The Beginning****  
**

The year was 1989.

"Go and play outside!" a man was growling as he pushed a little girl in a dirty dress out the door of his apartment. "People your age like playing outside!" Succeeding in shoving the girl out the door, he slammed the door in her face. The little girl, perhaps about seven years of age, raised her fist to knock, but lowered it before doing so.

Shoulders slumped, the girl began to walk away towards the stairs. Then she heard a slight sound to her right. Startled, she looked in that direction. There was a certain apartment—deserted due to disrepair that no one had yet bothered to fix. She had heard a rumor that it was haunted once, but was unsure whether or not to believe that. Brow furrowing, she stared at the door. When she heard another small sound from within, she edged towards the door.

She reached towards the handle, hesitated a moment, and then took hold and turned it. She opened the door slowly. It did not creak like the door of the apartment where she lived—this one was entirely silent. Tiptoeing inside carefully, she let the door close quietly behind her. She looked around cautiously, registering that it was almost identical to the apartment where she stayed, and the sound came again. She knew that it came from the bedroom. She opened the sliding door a crack and peeked inside. There lay someone, obviously injured—blood soaked his clothing and ran down his arms.

She hastily left the room, and the apartment. She knew what to do for injuries. She had watched her mother treat them when she had been alive, and had memorized what she could. When her parents had died, sending her to a distant uncle, she had brought a box of her mother's medicines and bandages, which she had hidden carefully.

The little girl ran down the stairs from the third floor, exiting the building. She ran around to the back, where balconies of each apartment jutted out from the building. The first floor was slightly above ground level, leaving a small opening, about a foot high, between the first floor apartments' balconies and the ground. The girl easily slipped under one of those balconies and began to dig. She soon pulled out a dirty blue box, which she carried with her as she crawled back out of the opening. This box contained her mother's medicines and bandages, as well as some of her own treasures.

She ran back up to the third floor, carrying the box that looked too large for such a small body to carry. However, the little girl managed. Reaching the deserted apartment, she cautiously entered once more. This time, when she slid open the door, she opened it all the way.

The person lying there snapped his head—for it was a he, she saw—around to look at her. His hair was white—she had never seen anyone with that color of hair before. Old people had grey or white hair, she knew, but he was definitely not old, and this was not that kind of grey or white—this was a white that shone; it almost seemed silver. His eyes were a stunning color as well—gold. Those golden eyes narrowed at her, glaring, and she heard a sound that was almost a growl.

She almost pulled back, but did not. He was hurt, and he had no one to help him. She was often hurt, but she had her mother's medicines to help her. It did not look as though this boy had anything at all.

So she edged forward, and once beside him, opened the box. She looked at his clothing. The blood was darker than usual. That meant that it was dry, and that meant that it would hurt to take off his shirt to look at the cut. But she knew that cuts got worse when they were not properly taken care of. So, placing the box carefully on the ground, she reached out and peeled up the once-white T-shirt. He lay on his side, so she had some trouble. However, she discovered that it was easier to remove from his back. So the cut must be on his tummy, she realized. As she continued peel the shirt upwards, she often glanced up at the boy's face, expecting to see pain or anger, or both. But he only continued to glare warningly at her, and she wondered if it was only she who felt such pain when something with dried blood was peeled off. For as she pulled up the T-shirt, she saw that she was pulling up scabs, and a large cut on his tummy was bleeding again. When she reached his arms, however, he refused to budge for her. The cut extended to his chest, too. The little girl knew that she had to get the shirt off to make the boy's cuts better. So she tugged insistently, glaring back at the boy. But the boy still would not move.

So she reluctantly sat and opened a bottle from her box. She then took out one of the cotton balls, and poured some of the liquid from the bottle on to it. When she began to dab it onto the boy's cuts and the cuts bubbled, she expected to hear wails of pain, and winced. But she heard nothing, and looking up, she saw that the boy's face showed no pain and the glare was gone. He was watching her, but she could not tell what he was thinking. She tried dabbing the cotton onto another cut, and though it bubbled as well, the boy showed no pain.

Suddenly, the girl wondered if something was different about the medicine. She looked at a cut on her arm that she had recently received when her uncle had had too much beer and cut her with a knife, and dabbed the cotton ball on to it. It bubbled, and she winced. She wondered why the boy showed no pain, but figured that he was simply stronger than her. She was about to dab the cotton on the boy's cuts again when he spoke.

"Fool." She looked up in surprise. "It shall be useless if you use that on both our cuts. It spreads infections, even if you do have peroxide on the cotton." The boy spoke elegantly—unlike anyone she had ever heard before, and she instantly fell in love his speech. But she did not recognize the words 'infection' and 'peroxide'. She recalled her mother using them, but could not remember what they meant. So she did all she could do—she put the medicine on another cotton ball and began to dab it on the boy's cuts once more. When she reached his upper chest, still covered by the T-shirt, she tried to pull it off once more, but the boy still would not budge. So she settled for pulling it up as high as she could and making do with that.

When she had finished, she pulled out a bandage and wrapped it around his stomach and chest. She could not do it as well as her mother could, but was nonetheless proud of herself when she finished.

"Rin!"

The little girl, Rin, jumped at the sound of her name, roared from the hallway. She hastily replaced everything in the box and closed it. However, she did not pick it up. She left it there, next to the boy, and ran off out of the room. The boy stared after her, even after he heard the front door shut. He supposed that whoever had been calling her had not been out in the hallway any longer, for he heard no more shouting for some time.

Sesshoumaru lay back on the old mattress where he lay and turned his eyes to the medicine box. Was this the girl's way of saying that she would come back?

Sure enough, a few minutes later, he heard the front door open and close again. Seconds later, the girl slid open the door and entered the bedroom, carrying something in one hand. When she approached, he recognized it as a leaf, on top of which lay small bits of food.

"Do not trouble yourself with me," Sesshoumaru told the girl coldly, turning his head away.

Rin did not know what to do. She knew that the boy must be hungry, and so had found some scraps of food that she hoped her uncle would not notice to be gone and placed them on a large leaf that she had found and kept in her hidden collection of 'interesting things' a few days before—she could not afford to use a plate, for there were not many and she knew that her uncle would notice at once if one were to disappear. But the boy did not appear to be hungry. Or was he just pretending?

Rin had to return before her uncle realized that she was gone. So she left the leaf there, next to the box, and walked out of the room once more. That night, she would hide some of her own dinner and somehow bring it to the boy.

* * *

And so the days passed. Rin treated the boy's wounds and left him food, which he always refused, but which nonetheless was always gone by the next time Rin came by. Sesshoumaru noticed that new bruises and cuts would frequently appear on the girl's face and body. The first time, he asked what had happened, but the girl did not reply; instead, to Sesshoumaru's bewilderment, she smiled as though she had just received the best gift in the world.

After that, Rin began to spend more time with Sesshoumaru. She would come three times a day to bring him food that she had snuck off her plate from a previous meal, but she would then sit there with him. There was seldom any talking, but she was comfortable with that. His wounds healed within a week, but he did not leave. He did sometimes leave the building to take a walk, but he always made sure that no one saw him and that he was inside by the time Rin arrived. The third week had just begun when he decided to leave.

"Rin," he said one day when she came with a handful of food. He knew her name from the man that sometimes shouted for her from the hallway, who was probably a father or guardian of some sort. "Do not come tomorrow. I shall be gone."

Rin suddenly looked terribly dejected, her eyes filling with tears and her shoulders slumping as she looked at the ground. Sesshoumaru's brow furrowed.

"School starts soon—I must return by the time it does." Rin looked up, her expression now showing confusion as well. "Do you not go to school?" Rin shook her head, still confused and dejected. "How old are you?" asked Sesshoumaru curiously. Rin held up six fingers.

_Then she should be beginning first grade,_ thought Sesshoumaru. _Is it because she is mute? But that would not get the man she lives with around the law. _Perhaps the man would send her to school when it began, and had just neglected to warn her.

But even as he thought, the look of dejection and loneliness in her face somehow changed Sesshoumaru's mind.

"Very well," he told her. "I shall come here every afternoon once school ends." _I despise that place that I call home anyhow. It is a good excuse to get away._

A smile lit up Rin's face, even more delighted than the first, though Sesshoumaru had not thought that possible.

And so a strange sort of friendship began.

"You have not been going to school, am I correct?" Sesshoumaru asked Rin one day. Rin nodded. "Did you know that that is against the law?" Rin's face showed only confusion—obviously the word 'law' was foreign to her.

Sesshoumaru thought for a moment, wondering what tactic he should use to understand her situation. He had spent the past few weeks coming to the run-down apartment building after school: on the first day, he had intended to wait outside until Rin came and found him—if she did not, that was that—but he had reached the building to find Rin waiting in the shadows of the entrance. Her face had lit up in delight and she had thrown her arms around his waist as though she had not expected him to come—but he knew that she was too trusting to ever doubt anything anyone said. (Or was it just him? He doubted it—what had he ever done to earn her trust?)

There were, however, occasions when she was not waiting for him. These were occasions on which she would eventually be thrown out of the apartment where she lived with that man, covered in more bruises than was probably healthy.

It did not take a genius to figure out that she suffered abuse, and apparently neglect as well, if her lack of schooling was any indication. But then why hadn't the authorities come after her guardian yet? School was compulsory, and the person who was unregistered in Japanese society was practically nonexistent. Still, the only way to explain this situation was that Rin was unregistered.

"Rin," Sesshoumaru began. She smiled up at him. "In this world, there are people—important people—who are supposed to ensure that everyone is treated correctly and has everything that they need. School is a place where you learn things that you need to know: reading and writing, numbers, history—how the world has come to be the way that it is… These important people are supposed to make sure that all children go to school. So why have they not come to take you?"

Rin just looked up at him, clearly bemused. Apparently, there had been no one whom she could recall pestering her guardian about her education. In which case there was only one thing left in Sesshoumaru's power.

"Would you like to learn all the things that people learn in school?"

Rin's eyes lit up with delight, and a grin covered her face. Sesshoumaru felt a smile cover his face as well—he would never have permitted it of himself at 'home', but smiles made Rin happy and were therefore acceptable here.

"Then I shall teach you."

He had had a feeling that this would be the result of this discussion that he had been planning, and so had brought his first grade textbooks with him.

Sesshoumaru and Rin sat side-by-side in the dusty, deserted apartment, and began their lessons.

* * *

"Nine times four."

Rin held up three, then six fingers.

"Five times seven."

Rin held up three fingers, then five.

"You do realize that this would be easier if you would talk."

Rin looked down, and Sesshoumaru experienced an uncharacteristic moment of doubt—what if she really _could_ not speak? It could just as easily be a problem in the vocal chords themselves, rather than a problem with Rin's psyche.

"Literature, then. Did you read the story I told you to?"

Rin nodded vigorously, eyes wide and eager. She opened Sesshoumaru's third grade textbook to a page near the beginning, and pointed at one paragraph, then dragged her finger across the page to the end of a paragraph on the next page.

Sesshoumaru nodded and lifted the book: this reading aloud had become a tradition of theirs. Because Rin could not read the stories and poems aloud, Sesshoumaru would assign her a story or poem to read, and when she had read the assigned portion, she would point out the part which she wished to hear aloud. As Sesshoumaru began reading, he thought he heard a clatter somewhere. He glanced at Rin; her eyes were closed, and there was a contented smile on her face. He figured the sound to have come from a neighbor, and chose to ignore it and continue.

The next moment, the front door of the deserted apartment opened with such force that it bounced off the wall. Rin's eyes flew open, and even Sesshoumaru could not suppress a jolt of alarm that shot through him at the cry of, "RIN!"

There was no time, and nowhere to hide themselves or the books. A moment later a man with long black hair had slammed open the sliding door of the room, and was glaring down at them.

"So…found a friend, did you, Rin?" he purred in a manner that at once made Sesshoumaru hate him more than his own father, half-brother or stepmother. "Thought you'd learn to read? You don't need that. Legally, you don't even exist. The best job you'll ever get is selling yourself when you get older. Your body, your services…you'd be virtually a slave, but how could you object? You wouldn't be able to live otherwise. I could sell you now, if I thought you'd fetch a decent price."

"She wouldn't sell. She can't talk, and doesn't move a muscle no matter what you do to her. It would be like buying a dead body—no one would pay for that."

"How touching. Trying to defend my niece, are you? There're things you can do with an unresisting body that men would pay good money for—do you know what I'm talking about?"

Sesshoumaru did not. He also did not like not knowing things, let alone admitting to ignorance. So he said nothing. The uncle chuckled, seemingly knowing that Sesshoumaru did not know. "Why don't I show you now? She's a little small…but eight is a good enough age. Come here, Rin."

Rin was trembling. Sesshoumaru could feel the tremors as she stood beside him. She took a step forward. Sesshoumaru did not know what the man intended to do, and he wondered if Rin did. Sesshoumaru took hold of Rin's arm and pulled her to him. He saw Rin looking up at him with wide, startled eyes, but would be damned before he'd hand her over to that lunatic who was apparently her uncle.

The man's eyes had darkened. "Hand her over, boy. I'm going to let you be witness to the beginning of the loss of her virginity. You should feel honored. In fact, I could even let you do the honor. Would you like that? Then again, I suppose you haven't the faintest idea what I'm talking about." The man chuckled as if this were the most amusing thing in the world. "A shame. You could have taken all of it—I'm just going to ask her to put that pretty little mouth to use. Don't want to ruin merchandise before it's ripe, after all."

Sesshoumaru, however, suddenly understood. He knew what it meant to lose one's virginity. He also knew what rape was, and realized that this man—no, this pathetic bastard made of _scum_—intended to do just that to Rin.

"I'll buy her." Sesshoumaru had spoken before he had thought, and belatedly realized that such a statement may be even more distressing to Rin. But she only relaxed in his arms, and he heard a small sigh of relief escape her.

The uncle stared a moment, then laughed. "I'm sure you would, when you got older. What kind of money have you got now, boy?" Sesshoumaru gritted his teeth—all he had was his father's money, except for that which his late mother had left behind in a trust fund that he could not access without assistance from certain adults.

"But that's not what you meant, is it?" the uncle purred. "You want her to leave me forever, do you? She could be a decent source of income in the future, you know. She legally _does not exist_—I can rape her, kill her, sell her, and the police would never find out unless someone squealed.

"So I'll buy her," Sesshoumaru repeated. "I'll give you all the money in the trust fund my mother left me."

"Trust fund?" The man raised his eyebrows. "Well, that's more than I would have expected of a homeless orphan. But unfortunately, I can't access it any more than you can, since you're not of age. A homeless boy's mother probably couldn't leave more than a few thousand yen anyway. Hardly a decent sum. Tell you what—give me a show, and I'll let you have the kid. No one'd pay to fuck a corpse anyway, and she costs a hell of a lot—eats like a pig." He shuddered.

Sesshoumaru wondered if it were possible to break something out of sheer rage, without ever touching it. He willed the horrible man to implode. "Show?" he inquired through gritted teeth, trying to make it sound as though he were just confirming, rather than that he honestly had no clue what the man wanted.

The man sighed and waved a hand. "Hit her, fuck her, whatever. Do something exciting."

Sesshoumaru saw red, and the next thing he knew, he was pouncing on the man. The man snorted and knocked him out of the way with little effort. Sesshoumaru tried again, only to the same effect. As he tried to stand again, Sesshoumaru felt something give out. Apparently, he had broken a bone somewhere. He saw the horrible man swing his leg up to deliver a kick that would probably crush Sesshoumaru's ribs. He'd probably die, Sesshoumaru thought, not particularly moved by the thought. It wasn't as if he had a family to miss him.

There was a shrill scream of alarm, and the next thing Sesshoumaru knew, he was hit not with a crushing, painful force, but with a soft weight collapsing on top of him. He stared at Rin's crumpled body, listening to broken sobs of, "Se- Se- Sess- Se…"

"Bastard!" growled the man. "That's going to be permanent! I'd have to pay hospital bills to fix those ribs—who's going to pay to fuck a deformed corpse? Forget it." The man left the room, but not before delivering half-hearted kicks to both Rin and Sesshoumaru. "Beer…bastard…" The man mumbled to himself as he left the room.

"Se-Sess," Rin was sobbing. "Okay? Hurt? Okay?"

"I'm alive," Sesshoumaru said ironically, crawling out from under Rin and inspecting her body. "He did break your ribs. Come, let's get you to a doctor."

"Sess," said Rin, clinging to his hand. "No—no….away…." Sesshoumaru understood that she wanted him to stay. So using his eleven-year-old knowledge of the human body, he made sure that all her ribs were aligned. There did not seem to be anything sticking where it should not have been, but he knew that there was a danger of bone fragments puncturing the lungs. Instructing Rin not to move, he carefully lay her on her less-damaged side on the floor.

"Let me just leave for ten minutes. I promise—just ten minutes. I'll bring something to make you better."

Rin was only semi-conscious, and just gave a low moan.

Sesshoumaru bolted out the door and to the nearest pay phone. Thanking ever deity he knew of and didn't believe in for the foresight of carrying around loose change, he hastily dialed a number.

It did not take much effort to get Rin to a hospital once Sesshoumaru called Jaken to the scene. Jaken, Sesshoumaru's personal servant, was very dedicated to the family and not very pleased to find Sesshoumaru doting over a little girl of no known lineage, and determined to blow his trust fund to put Rin in proper medical care. Of course, it did not take that much money to treat Rin. She had only fractured her ribs, and the only serious break was in her arm. Sesshoumaru, suddenly paranoid about the guardian that he had paid so little attention to in the past two years, never left her side.

The nurses, puzzled that Rin had no medical records, questioned Sesshoumaru and Jaken on the matter. Jaken ever the loyal servant, stuck to Sesshoumaru's tale of having found her abandoned with no identification. The police were contacted, and Rin was registered temporarily with the city hall. The police asked Rin questions which she refused to or could not answer; after a few questions Rin began to appear agitated, and Sesshoumaru began to display signs of rage. At this point Jaken timidly but firmly told the police that they ought to come back at a later date. Rin's fingerprints were taken and the police took their leave.

On the day before Rin was to be discharged from the hospital, Sesshoumaru told Jaken to rent a small apartment with space enough for two at a decent distance from his father's home.

"But sir, you are but eleven!"

"Then rent it in your name. You can live there too, so long as you don't get in the way. It'll be useful if the police come asking questions again."

"But-"

"_Do it._"

"Yes, sir."

* * *

That was how Rin and Sesshoumaru ended up living in a three bedroom apartment with Jaken. Jaken did the cooking and cleaning, with Rin' help. Sesshoumaru enrolled Rin in school—at this point Jaken was outraged, for all the expenses were being removed from Sesshoumaru's mother's trust fund. But he could not send her to the same school which he attended; instead he sent her to a small private school nearby, and made his own school day as short as possible so as to be near Rin as much as possible.

In stark contrast to Sesshoumaru's newfound paranoia, Rin had undergone a dramatic transformation from shy mouse to outgoing parakeet. She drove Jaken up a wall with her incessant questions and tireless chatter, yet Sesshoumaru never complained. He may have been not too subtle about his paranoia on Rin's behalf, but he was certainly not going to surrender even more pride by admitting that it was the incessant chatter of the previously mute girl that calmed him.

"For heaven's sake, girl!" Jaken exploded. "You've been going to that school for a good two years! It's about time you started bringing friends home!"

Rin looked at Jaken oddly. "But you're not even allowed to tell anyone that I'm here."

"You may bring any of your friends here," said Sesshoumaru, before Jaken could say a word. "This is your home."

"Yay!" cheered Rin. She then proceeded to tell them all about her day at school.

Yet Rin still did not ever bring friends to the apartment. Sesshoumaru began to look for signs, and once he began searching, they were so obvious that he could scarcely believe that he had missed them before. (_Two years, _he berated himself. _She's been bearing all of this for _two _years!_)

Rin spoke extensively of her day at school; yet she was never present in those tales. She spoke of funny things that had happened or people had said, but when she spoke of herself, it was always something interesting or funny that she had done alone. There were no bruises that suggested physical bullying, but Sesshoumaru found himself more concerned for Rin's mental state.

He skipped school the next day, and hung around the school—most notably during recess. He noted that Rin was always alone. There did not seem to be any bad blood between her and her classmates, but there also seemed to be no inclination on either part to communicate with the other.

That evening, he talked to the principle of Rin's school and had Jaken speak to the principle of Sesshoumaru's school. The preparations were final by Friday morning, and on Friday evening Sesshoumaru informed Rin that she would be starting at his school on Monday.

Her eyes lit up like the sun coming out from behind a thin cloud. Sesshoumaru wondered how he had missed that her school made her so sad.

"Then I'll get to see you at school too?"

"No," said Sesshoumaru. "You must not let anyone know that we know each other, let alone that we live together. You may invite friends over if you wish, but you must also tell me in advance so that I can plan to be somewhere else at that time."

"You don't want to be seen with me?" asked Rin sadly, and the sun hid behind the clouds again.

Sesshoumaru looked down at the girl around whom his life seemed to revolve. "I don't want them to remind the police that you're a homeless orphan, because the moment that happens you'll be taken away."

"Oh," said Rin, and the sun was out and bright again. "Okay!"

On Monday, when Sesshoumaru looked for Rin across the fence that separated the middle school area from the elementary school area he saw her happily playing with three other girls. By Tuesday, Rin seemed to be friends with her entire class. By Wednesday, she had fifteen best friends, and by Thursday, she wasn't coming home till dark.

When sitting in the quiet apartment alone, doing his homework in the afternoon, Sesshoumaru sometimes found himself wondering why he hadn't just left well enough alone. Then Rin would come home, smiling and bursting with tales to share of her beautiful day and wonderful friends, and he would smile and think that he had done the best thing after all.

So life went on. Then one night, when Sesshoumaru was 18 and considering going to the local college for the sake of being near Rin, he looked up at the clock and realized that it was past midnight.

Rin had never come home.


	3. Chapter 1: Awake

_Author's Note: Due to an abundance of complaints that it's difficult to tell whether the story is in reality or a dream at any given time, I've reworked the formatting so all dreams are italicized.  
_

**Lord of My Dreams**

**Chapter 1: Awake**

_It was as peaceful as ever that day. No one ever expected the disaster that struck without a warning._

_She was weeding in her family's garden. Mother was tending to her little brother, sick with a terrible fever, and Father had gone to a neighboring village for a fortnight. Weeding the extensive fields in the bright sun of summer was a difficult task, but she did not complain. Her family's fields were larger than most of the other villagers'. While this meant more work, it also meant that they were quite blessed, and she was not about to act as though that meant nothing to her._

_By the time she had finished the wheat field, the sun was beginning to sink in the west. There was still a good deal of light, however, so she decided to head to the cornfield while there was still light. Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, she sighed and stepped out of the damp dirt of the wheat field. She then untied her ragged skirt where it had been secured on her lower thighs, letting it fall to its proper length._

_Someone screamed. She spun around. Arrows were flying out of the southern forest at the small village. Overcome with terror, she spun around and began to run home—she would need to help her mother and little brother escape this sudden attack, somehow._

_She was terrified of the arrows that poured down on them like rain, and that became panic when flaming arrows began to come at them. She had just come into view of her house when it caught fire. She screamed and tried to run faster._

_But hands grabbed her from behind. She was about to scream when the hands spun her around, and the scream became a whimper of relief. It was He._

_"Get to the hideaway!"_

_She turned her eyes towards her family's house in protest. She almost never contradicted him, but at this particular moment, her mind was in a turmoil, and she simply could not think. Yet, even as she was terrified, her heart warmed as it always did when He was there._

_"Are you deaf? Get to the hideaway now!" His eyes were cold as he yelled at her, and she knew that he would not take no for an answer. So she nodded and ran in the direction in which all the other villagers were going as well._

_When they reached the center of the village, there was a well. The people were crowded around that well, pushing and shoving to get into it. It was a small village, but only one person could jump into the well at a time. She did not join the pushing and shoving, instead looking around for him, as well as her mother and little brother. They were nowhere to be seen, and eventually there were hardly any people left by the well. With a single backwards glance, she lifted her body to the edge of the well, and then jumped in. The water was cold, but before she had been in it a moment, hands reached down from above, dragging her into an opening on the side of the well. The floor was damp, but she was drenched, and paid no attention to that._

_The two men who had pulled her up quickly pushed her deeper into the tunnel so that they could pull up the next person._

_It was pitch black, so she felt her way along the walls. Before long, she came out to a large open cavern. The slightest amount of light filtered in from somewhere, although it was impossible to tell where. It was freezing, and her wet clothing did nothing to help. The cave continued in a number of directions from this cavern, but everyone of the village who had managed to escape was here. It was a little crowded, but it was not suffocating. She walked cautiously to an area where there were less people, and suddenly her foot was even colder than before. Hastily pulling it back, she realized that it was an underground river. She bent down and felt along with her hands to find a place where she could sit not too close to the water._

_Hours seemed to pass as she sat there in the silent caves, hugging her knees. All that could be heard was an occasional cry of a babe or a slight whisper as someone spoke to someone else. But not many did speak. She did not speak, nor did she edge closer to others as most were doing to calm their terror. She was anxious for her family as well as him. Although she knew that he was more likely to be all right, for some reason, she found herself more anxious about his wellbeing._

_No one entered the cavern any longer. Everyone who had survived was already there. Yet, somehow, she was sure that he would come. She sat motionless, staring at the tunnel from which she had entered._

_It was when most others in the cavern had fallen asleep that he entered. His eyes scanned the cavern sharply, falling on her. She breathed a sigh of relief as he approached her with steady steps._

_"…I apologize." His words were said in a voice so low that she barely caught them, but the sight of him had warmed her cold, lonely heart, and she smiled at him. She knew that he was apologizing that he had been unable to save her family, but she had given up on the survival of everyone she loved. The survival of one among those she loved was more than enough of a miracle for her._

_He lowered his body to sit beside her, and then wrapped a warm arm around her. "Sleep." They knew that when she woke in the morning, the shock would have worn off and she would then grieve her family in earnest._

_Snuggling against the warm body beside her, she obediently drifted off into slumber._

* * *

When she opened her eyes, for a moment, she had no idea where she was, for she had expected to wake in a dark, damp cavern. She realized that it had been a dream, but somehow, she knew that it was more than a simple dream. Her heart was warm, and she had an overwhelming desire for something—or someone—that she was missing. Had it been the man, perhaps? Or the family? Maybe the time? Or the place?

Higurashi Rin shook her head, but remained lying in bed. She closed her eyes, recalling everything she could of the dream. The tunnel…the cave…the feeling of warmth as she fell asleep… And then she thought of the man. Just thinking of him made her heart ache, and she groaned in frustration. So it was the man that caused the ache. Again.

Rin had been having such dreams for about five and a half years now. They all differed in time, place, and circumstances. There were violent dreams such as the one that she had just had, but there were also peaceful ones. There were two reasons why she classified them in a single category: an unbearable ache in her chest when she awoke, and _His_ presence in them.

She could remember nothing of him. All she knew was that she felt strongly for him in some way, although she never could remember any of his features when she awoke. Yet, somehow, she thought that she knew who he was. But she refused to think about it, for she could not know for certain whether it was actually so or simply her own wishful thinking.

Sighing, Rin sat up in bed. Rubbing her head in half-hearted annoyance, she reached for her diary. Though she had no idea why, she felt the need to record these strange dreams, and had therefore begun doing so two years before.

Naturally, the first time she had had such a dream, she had thought nothing of it. It seemed to be a one-time thing, and the unbearable desire lessened and eventually vanished as the days went by. But then she had had a second. It had struck her as slightly strange that her emotions were so stirred by simple dreams, but still dismissed it as nothing of particular importance.

But then she had had a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth… She had begun to think it quite strange, and had tried going to a dream-reader to interpret her dreams. However, she could no longer even remember what she had been told—she only recalled that she had instantly deemed it all utter rubbish.

So she had turned to books. She had read all manner of novels with people having strange dreams. However, none ever seemed to relate to her. There were stories where people had special dreams every night, or repeatedly had the same dream over and over, or where they knew that they were special because they remained vividly in their minds… But Rin's dreams were infrequent and unpredictable. She had no idea what the man looked like, and if she did not think about it often or record it, she would forget such dreams as easily as any other. There were even times when she would awaken with no memory of any dream, only knowing that she had had one because of the ache in her heart.

After recording all that she could remember and dating the entry, she closed her diary and sighed. She would have to be getting downstairs soon, but first needed to clear her mind. She was generally the type to let her emotions flow openly, but she had come to know that it was not a particularly good idea to do so after one of these dreams. After the first dream, she had found herself often sobbing for no particular reason over the course of the week, and after the second, she had become irrationally bad-tempered. In addition, the entire times, her thoughts would not leave him. It was quite frustrating to feel so strongly for one who she had known for five years through her dreams, yet had no more than an inference as to his identity.

_Maybe,_ she thought, _it's my wishful thinking that _causes _the dreams in the first place. I dream about him because I know nothing will ever come of it in real life._

"Rin!" she heard her elder sister call at the same time as there was a knock on her bedroom door. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah, I'm awake," Rin mumbled as she mentally stomped once more on the emotions stirred by the dream in an attempt to hold them down. She heard her sister walk away from the door, and shortly afterwards heard footsteps heading down the stairs. Rin slipped out from under the covers, letting her feet touch the floor softly.

Two minutes later, she was heading down the stairs in sweatpants and a T-shirt. Entering the kitchen and muttering a 'good morning' to her elder sister, she sat down at the table for breakfast. Her sister, Kagome, looked quite like Rin in that she also had black hair and brown eyes, but there were differences. If a person knew to look, they could tell that the sisters were not related by blood.

Kagome looked around at Rin and frowned.

"You didn't comb your hair again, did you?" Her sister's voice was reproachful. Indeed, Rin had only brushed the surface of her thick black hair with a comb, and then tied a small ponytail with the upper layer of hair on the side of her head.

"I'll brush it properly after breakfast," Rin promised. Kagome shook her head with a small smile.

"Really, Rin. I doubt that there ever was a teenager more obedient than you. But I'm going to have to cut your hair if you don't take care of it properly." Rin only gave one of her bright laughs at that statement, and went to look at the rice maker.

"O-ne-san, the rice is done."

"Good. I've just finished the miso soup," Kagome replied as she turned off the stove and began ladling the light brown soup into bowls. Meanwhile, Rin opened the rice maker and began dishing the rice into bowls as well. They placed one each of the soup bowls and rice bowls at each of the three places set on the table with chopsticks, a glass and a third bowl containing a raw egg. Kagome then went out into the hallway to call her husband once more.

"Inuyasha!" she called up the stairs. When Rin heard an angry shout in reply, she broke her egg into the bowl that had held it and began to mix it with her chopsticks. When she was satisfied, she dug a hole at the top of her rice and poured in the raw egg. As she mixed that and then began to eat, Rin picked up the newspaper, effectively tuning out her sister and new brother-in-law's arguing.

Normally, Rin would have preferred to rent her own apartment than live with the lovebirds, but her mother had insisted. Kagome and Inuyasha's house actually was quite near the college that she had begun attending, and Rin knew that her mother was having enough trouble paying her college tuition. Although Rin was working as well, helping her mother with her tuition and her sister and brother-in-law with the taxes on their house, her salary was not substantial enough to make very much of a difference.

Rin had finished her meal by the time Kagome finally dragged a sleepy-looking Inuyasha into the kitchen and ordered him to eat. Inuyasha had startling golden eyes, and his dark black hair was always kept long. As Kagome and Inuyasha began to eat, still bickering, Rin washed her dishes and put them into the dish drainer before returning to her room.

She picked up her diary and read the description of her dream that she had written only minutes before. Remembering as she read, Rin contemplated the girl that she had been. She remembered wearing a western dress, tattered and torn, and the hut that she remembered running towards was, doubtlessly, western. However, what puzzled Rin most was the detachment she had felt from her 'family'. She had felt no particular sadness upon learning that her mother and younger brother had died—He had been all that mattered.

It was rare, she had come to realize, for her to feel any attachment to her family in those dreams. In some, she did not even have any family.

As Rin continued to contemplate, trying to figure out what she could, another knock came at her door.

"Yes?" called Rin. The door slowly opened and Kagome entered looking worried.

"Are you all right, Rin?" asked Kagome. Her brow was furrowed in concern as she sat beside Rin on the bed and reached out to touch Rin's hair. Rin let her elder sister stroke her hair. "You've been a little gloomy this morning. Is something wrong at college? Or does it bother you to live with us? Is it something else?" Rin considered smiling and saying that nothing was wrong, but she had never liked faking emotions. So she shook her head and sighed.

"It's nothing, Kagome-ne-san. I had a disturbing dream last night, and that's been on my mind. Nothing's wrong."

"Like what you used to have all those years ago? They've started again?" The look on Kagome's face was suddenly intense. Rin found herself wishing vaguely that her thirteen-year-old self had not told Kagome about the disturbing dreams. But back then, Rin had been finding it difficult to keep one secret, and had therefore wished not to keep another—especially since it affected her so strongly.

If she had wanted, Rin could have lied, or told a half-truth. But she did not like lies, and she trusted her elder sister. In addition, the turmoil of emotions seemed to only grow, and she now wanted to talk.

"They never stopped, o-ne-san," Rin said. "It's just that after a while, I stopped talking about them."

"You said…they're emotionally involved? And you remember someone in them?" Kagome asked. Rin nodded. After only slight hesitation, Kagome asked a question that was gnawing at her mind. "Rin, do you know who 'he' is now? I mean, you didn't know five years ago, but do you now?"

Rin shook her head slowly, a thoughtful look coming to her face.

"I can't say for sure. It's the same as it was—in the dreams, I think I know who he is, but when I wake up, I can't remember anything about him at all." Rin's words were just as thoughtful as her expression, and Kagome looked at Rin in surprise.

"But then how do you even know that they're the same person?" asked Kagome "I mean, couldn't he just be no one in particular? Not to offend you, of course, but what if it's just a person that your mind's been making up—sort of like your dream Prince Charming?" Rin stared at Kagome for a moment, not quite understanding. "What I'm trying to say," Kagome began slowly once more upon seeing Rin's expression, "is that maybe it's just the ideal man for you that your mind's been making up. Not anyone you know or anything."

A smile lit up Rin's face when she understood what Kagome was trying to say.

Rin shook her head. "I know who I always think it is while I'm dreaming. It's just that when I wake up, I can't remember anything about him except who I thought he was, so I can't be sure if it was just my dream-mind playing tricks on me." This time it was Kagome's turn to laugh.

"Come on, Rin," Kagome said. "They're just dreams, after all. You're talking as though they're apparitions."

Rin blinked. Now that she thought about it, she had not been thinking of them as simple dreams for quite a while. She had begun to think that they had some special meaning to them. But Kagome was right. They were probably no more than dreams, and she was better off thinking of them as simple dreams until she had something that proved them to be something else.

"You're right, o-ne-san," Rin said with a bright smile. "Thanks. I was starting to get carried away." Kagome gave a smile.

"But remember—not all dreams are nonsense! Some can be…well, some can really tell you about yourself."

Rin smiled wryly. "Your dream theory again."

Kagome opened her mouth as if to argue; then she closed it again, shaking her head. "So, you said that you know who he is in the dreams. Who is he?"

Rin froze. Kagome, surprised, peered into Rin's face apprehensively.

"Rin?" asked Kagome worriedly. "Are you all right?" Rin did not reply. Kagome called her a few more times before quieting and waiting for her sister to speak.

But the seconds ticked by, and Rin said nothing. She did not even move. It was a chance to begin the telling of the secret that she had kept for all these years, and she was determined to take it. Yet the words were not coming to her lips.

Kagome was just beginning to think that she should leave the room and leave Rin alone, when Rin mumbled something.

"Sorry?" asked Kagome, her brow furrowed, as she leaned her ear towards Rin, who was staring fixedly at the floor.

"Sesshoumaru," said Rin again, once more in a mumble. But this time Kagome heard.

"Sesshoumaru?" asked Kagome, blinking. This couldn't possibly be an answer to her question. "But…you hardly know- Wait, have any of these dreams taken place in feudal Japan?"

Rin blinked. She picked up her dream diary and began leafing through the pages. "Nope, none with that style of clothing."

"Strange," said Kagome, shaking her head. "You hardly know Sesshoumaru in this li- I mean, I've only seen you speaking with him once."

Rin breathed hard—this was her chance to tell. But the words were—again—slow in coming, and just as she opened her mouth to tell the truth, Kagome stood.

"Well, I suppose you want to be alone," said Kagome. Rin, who had jumped at Kagome's sudden movement, looked up at her sister and only nodded mutely. Kagome left the room, closing the door quietly.

Rin turned her eyes to the wall, and let herself get lost in her thoughts—memories—and wished that she could end this meaningless secret that she kept.


	4. Chapter 2: Expectations

**Lord of My Dreams**

**Chapter 2: Expectations**

_She walked along a long, dark hallway with doors on either side, carrying a wooden plate that held some bread and cheese in one hand, and a candlestick in the other. She did not know where she was headed, but she knew that He (who?) was waiting for her. She knew that she wanted nothing more in life than to spend one more moment with him, for he was her Lord._

_A glance down at her heavy clothing, and she recalled—she was a nun, a Sister of the Order. It was wrong to want so dearly to spend time with a man, let alone to revere him more than God. Yet she could not bring herself to care. Another door came into sight on the right, and her heart skipped a beat—this was the door, she suddenly knew as she quickened her pace to the door where she set the candle on the floor so as to be able to open the door._

_"I've brought your supper, father," she said, closing the door behind her._

_"You should know that I hate being called that."_

_The woman laughed. "Why be a priest, then, if you hate everything associated with it?"_

_"It was expected of me."_

_She sighed and carried the plate of food over to the table to set it down. "Why, then, do you spend all day in here praying to a god whom you claim not to believe exists?"_

_"You believe in him."_

_She smiled. "And so you have decided to borrow my faith?"_

_"I figure that if I pray for you, it will mean something more to you than it means to me."_

_She looked at him in surprise. "I-" She cut herself off abruptly, instead stepping forward and settling for wrapping the priest in her arms in an embrace._

_"I would kill those scoundrels if I could," he supplied._

_She laughed. "What an inappropriate comment for a man of god." Releasing him, she sat beside him on the organ bench, leaning on his shoulder._

_"I once could play the organ," she said quietly after a long silence._

_"What a coincidence—so could I." He smiled. Her heart leapt._

_"Would you play for me?"_

_"I will play with you."_

_He began with a melody, and she recognized it as a Kyrie that she had loved in her young childhood years. She joined him, harmonizing as best she knew. They fell easily into the scheme of the duet, as though they had been playing together all their lives._

* * *

Rin awoke to find herself outside. It took a few moments of blinking and gathering her wits to remember that she had come for a walk in the park to clear her mind, and ended up sitting down and falling asleep on a bench.

Standing, she headed homewards in order to write down her dream before she lost too many details. Her steps were unsteady with sleep at first, but gradually she awoke fully and began making her way more quickly and steadily.

When she reached the apartment and opened the door, before she could say "I'm home!" as she always did, she was distracted by voices in the main room.

"-dreams, but not the right kind!" Kagome was saying.

Intrigued, Rin closed the door quietly behind her and sat slowly so that she would make no sound.

"Sesshoumaru isn't even supposed to _be_ here," came Inuyasha's voice. "And he doesn't have any memories either—he's just the same bastard he was before he met Rin."

"Minus the slaughter of all humans that cross his path," added Kagome.

"Yes, maybe that." Inuyasha's voice was a grumble, as if this point was given begrudgingly.

"But the fact remains that Rin has no memory of that life," said another male voice which it took Rin a few moments to identify as Miroku, a good friend of Kagome and Inuyasha's. Which meant…

"Maybe it's like our families," said a woman's voice, and Rin knew at once that it was Sango, Miroku's on-again-off-again girlfriend. "Part of the spell was that we retain our personalities, and for that we required the same families—that's how we all ended up with the same parents as we had in the last lifetime, minus the family tragedies. But Rin…"

"Yes," concurred Kagome, "that's something that's been bothering me. Wouldn't it be essential to Rin's modern-day life that she have her parents? And if not, wouldn't she have at least had a time of her life with Sesshoumaru? But they don't know each other, let alone remember…"

"Remember _what?_" Rin wanted to shout, and she had to bite her lip to keep from revealing her presence.

"But our of our memories surfaced by the time we were fifteen or so; why would Rin be any different?"

"Have you ever considered a that the dreams could be the same scheme of reincarnation?" asked Miroku, sounding more serious than Rin had ever heard him. "Perhaps the spell was weaker on Rin, and her mind is trying to relieve the memories but mixing them up with dreams that she is dreaming."

"That would explain Sesshoumaru's presence, but then why are none of the rest of us ever there?" asked Sango.

"Not once has she even hinted about the Feudal Era," added Kagome.

"That…I can't explain," said Miroku, sounding tired.

Rin wanted to listen to more, but the building suspense was making it more and more difficult to keep quiet. So she opened the door and closed it, loudly. Then, taking off her shoes as if she had just entered, she called, "I'm home!"

"Welcome home!" called four voices from the living room, and if she had not heard the conversation, she would not have identified the touch of panic in their voices.

She peered into the living room. "Oh, hi, Miroku-san, Sango-san."

"I've told you, Rin, drop the san," smiled Sango. "We're practically family."

Rin smiled, hoping it wasn't too stiff. "I've got a lot of homework to do, so maybe I'll see you later?" she said, and hastily made an exit from the living room doorway into her own room.

Closing the door behind her, she heaved a deep sigh. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to resent the entire group for discussing her—and her past life, apparently—with no intention of letting her in on the conversation, or to resent Kagome for revealing to all of them what she had told Kagome in confidence.

But as she sat there, cooling her head, it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps Kagome's talk of a past life was the answer. Perhaps she ought to keep telling Kagome about her dreams… Perhaps she could even tell her about the dream she had just had in the park, replacing the nun and priest with…a Shinto priestess and a Buddhist monk? No, it just didn't have the same implications… It also seemed that Kagome was looking for something very specific, and if she began to lie, Kagome may lose interest in her dreams.

Then again, she thought, thinking back on the conversation she had heard, perhaps they believed Miroku's theory of jumbled memories, in which case all she needed was a believable story.

Grabbing her bag, she headed out again.

"Leaving again so soon?" asked Kagome, surprised.

"I have to go to the library to research something!" said Rin as she hurried out the door.

* * *

The feudal period in question, known as the _Sengoku Era,_ was a time of battles and warring kingdoms, Rin knew. From books she learned that the Era known as such was a period of about a century, between the late 1400s and the late 1500s. It was a time when states were warring for territory, and people were fighting to have enough food to feed their families. It was the period when construction began on a number of famous castles, which would then be redone during the Edo period. There were so many different tales of how the Sengoku Era had begun, some even conflicting with each other, that Rin had a terrible headache.

She found herself wondering how it was that she was going to University to study history, only to find that when she wanted to know about a particular point in history, there was little or nothing that she knew.

Rin found a reliable-looking book on the Era—it was an old book, bound in hardcover and worn out by time, and the title was simply Life in the Sengoku Era. A glance at the publishing date made her raise her eyebrows in surprise; the book was a reprint of a book published in the Meiji Era.

Mere moments after she had made herself comfortable in a chair in the corner with the book, she already found herself intensely thankful of the fact that this was a reprint: while she was reasonably confident that she could translate the archaic Japanese on her own, it was far easier to rely on the editor's notes in the margins.

She read about the history of the era, from the beginning of the wars between states to the unification of the nation by Oda Nobunaga. She read about the intervening battles and alliances, and felt herself drift in and out of consciousness.

* * *

_She was running down the path of dirt. She was terrified, but knew not of what. She was running to sanctuary, but had no idea where. She knew only that it was vital to get where she was going, and quickly._

_A glance behind, and she saw the horrid, gleaming fangs and the rough brown fur. Wolves, she suddenly recalled in horror. She was being chased by wolves. She applied herself to running, but she already knew that it was no good. Her legs were too short—no amount of running seemed to gain her any distance…_

_They were upon her, and all she felt was pain and blindness. His face was all she could think of, and she knew that this was a dream again—for, again, it was He. He was supposed to have saved her, she thought in disappointment. She felt her life fading quickly, the flesh being torn from her bones. This was the worst dream by far, she thought, and wished to wake up as she found herself only wishing that she could have seen him again._

_And then there he was, his face above her as majestic and beautiful as she remembered. She blinked slowly. She had been dead, but now he was cradling her in his arms. She swore to herself then and there that she would love and serve this Lord of hers for all her life._

_He drew away and helped her to her feet. She vaguely registered that there was a toad-like creature at his side, stuttering in obvious surprise at something or another. She couldn't have said that she remotely cared what the problem was, for she could not bring herself to look at anything or anyone but this beautiful angel who had just become her Lord._

_She followed him. She knew that she would follow him forever, to the ends of the world if necessary. He never once turned to acknowledge her, but she cared not a whit. He was not telling her to go away—for if she had, she would have had to comply even if it tore her heart to shreds—and that was more than enough for her._

* * *

Rin blinked in surprise at the book before her eyes. _Ah, another dream_, she realized, and wondered why it was taking her so long to wrap her mind around that fact.

She wanted to say that it was the same sort of dream as the others. Only…there was something different this time. The dreams were always vivid, there was no doubt about that, but this one was even more vivid than the others. She had been awake for long enough to come to her senses, yet she still found it difficult to convince herself that the scene that still burned before her eyes was truly a dream.

Furthermore, there was the matter of _Him_. For it was not _He_ who appeared in her dreams, whom she felt was Sesshoumaru. It _was_ Sesshoumaru, and of that she felt no doubt.

And yet…there was something very different. His silver hair and golden eyes were the same; yet there had been majesty, something exotic, about him that had inspired more than mere awe in her other self.

Furthermore, her other self had felt so very _young_, while Sesshoumaru had been fully an adult, at youngest. Never in her dreams had she and _He_ been so far apart in age; though, she supposed, such details were different from time to time.

As she looked around her, she was struck by the _oddness_ of the clothing that people were wearing. Only then did it strike her that in her dream, she and Sesshoumaru had worn kimono.

Rin grinned wryly, understanding. _I suppose I dreamed what I was reading, _she realized.

Yet when she turned her eyes back to the page of the book, still open on her lap, the words were even drier than they had seemed before. What was there in this book that had anything in common with her dream?

She sighed and flipped through the pages, wondering if this was a sign that she should just go home and stop thinking about it. Then she stopped and rifled back through the book to a page with a caption that had caught her eye:

_**Demons of the Sengoku Era**_

Rin stared at the caption, and her eyes naturally drifted to the small paragraph—all in red, to indicate that the writing was that of the editor, rather than the original author—below the caption.

_The original manuscript here describes in great detail supernatural creatures of many varieties, which the author claims to have existed in Japan during the Sengoku Era. Folktales were deemed out of place in this historic document, and have therefore been excluded in all printings since the original._

Rin stared. _Demons_. That word rang a bell—and for some reason, brought to mind the Sesshoumaru from her dream. She could see him, all grace and beauty, floating through the sky, his hair and tail floating behind him…

_Tail?_ Rin blinked. Then she shook her head and closed the book, inwardly laughing at herself. _I must be sleep deprived. Or maybe I'm coming down with the flu…_

Placing the book back in its place on the shelf, Rin left the library and headed home.


	5. Chapter 3: Excavation

**Lord of My Dreams**

**Chapter 3: Excavation**

Now that she knew that Kagome and her friends were hiding something or another regarding odd dreams, Rin's aimless puzzling over her dreams became a determined search of Kagome's house for clues—any clues, really.

She had added the odd Sengoku Era dream to her dream diary, simply because there had been too much detail in the dream for her to be able to say that she had entirely drawn it out of the words she had read in the book before drifting to sleep.

Unfortunately for Rin, the following day was a Monday, and she was up to her neck in classes and schoolwork. By the time she got home in the evening, Kagome and Inuyasha were both already home from work, and there was no time for Rin to search the house as she would have liked to.

Rin patiently waited for Thursday to roll around: she only had afternoon classes on Thusday, and could spend the entire morning searching the house to her heart's content.

Tuesday and Wednesday seemed to drag by, and Rin found it harder by the day to concentrate on her classes and homework. She almost wished she would have another dream that would distract her, but no such thing occurred. In fact, she did not remember any dreams when she woke each morning.

On Thursday morning, Rin could scarcely stay asleep: she woke up once at four, and then again at five; when she woke at six, she could no longer convince herself to go back to sleep, and she lay in bed with her eyes closed, listening until Kagome and Inuyasha got up, got dressed, and had breakfast. The clutters of their activity seemed unnecessarily prolonged, and it felt like an eternity before she finally heard the front door close, leaving behind only silence.

She waited a few minutes to be positive that they were gone, then leapt out of bed. Making a beeline for the trapdoor that led to the attic, Rin pulled the handle and opened the door, and then pulled down the folding ladder. She hastily turned on the light, and then looked around.

Rin felt her heart sink at once. There were so many boxes—it would take more than a day to sort through all of them. Sighing in resignation, she was about to pick one to start with when the doorbell rang.

Rin froze.

_I'm not here…I'm not here…go away, go away!_

But the doorbell rang again.

Rin panicked. The house was hardly soundproof, and the trapdoor to the attic wasn't at all quiet. If it was Sango or Miroku outside, they would be able to tell that she was closing the attic door. On the other hand, if she just went downstairs and answered the door, she would risk them discovering the attic door wide open.

The doorbell rang again, and Rin gave a silent scream of abandonment. Climbing back down the ladder, she headed down the stairs and opened the door.

"What could you _possibly_ want at this hour, you know it's my day…off…" Rin trailed off, staring up at the face of the man that she had dreamed of and missed desperately for years.

"Se-Sess?" Rin murmured, afraid that if she spoke too loudly the mere sound of her voice would erase this beautiful illusion.

"Ah, no improvement to your eloquence, or lack-thereof." His tone was cold, emotionless. A shudder went down Rin's spine, and she wondered if she hadn't gone back to sleep and slipped into a nightmare.

"Sess?"

"As I have returned to Tokyo relatively permanently, I am merely paying my half-brother and his wife an obligatory visit. Is he here?"

"N-no, Inuyasha and Kagome are already at work…" Rin briefly wondered if she had dreamed those five years. Or perhaps Sesshoumaru had forgotten them.

"Unfortunate. I shall be taking my leave, in that case." He turned and began to walk away.

"Wait, Sess!" cried Rin, not even bothering to slip on a pair of sandals as she sprang out the door after him.

Sesshoumaru stopped in his tracks and slowly turned his head to fix her with a piercing glare: glares that she had seen directed at many people—most people, in fact—but had never been fixed with herself. She felt her throat close as if to prevent her from vomiting the shards of her shattered heart.

"First of all," said the icy voice, "I do not appreciate being addressed in that manner. I have a name. It is Sesshoumaru. Use it or do not, but I do not appreciate mutilation of my name. Second of all, we are scarcely even acquaintances; what gives you the idea that it is appropriate to make _any_ demands of me?"

Rin stood in muted shock, staring after him as he simply walked away to a car parked on the side of the street, got inside, and drove away. Not once did he look back at her. A tear slipped down her cheek, and Rin wondered numbly why she could cry when she couldn't feel anything at all.

She dumbly stepped back inside and registered that she was about to break down into sobs.

_No._

Now more than ever, stoicism was important. She had a mission, and she was not about to abandon it.

Rin marched herself straight back to the attic and sat down determinedly with a box.

She sorted through albums, old school papers, and copies of old legal documents in vain. She thought of nothing but to find something that would tell her what Kagome had been talking about the other day. Minutes turned into hours and the hours went by one by one, but Rin determinedly failed to notice.

But Rin was only human, and there came a point where her concentration snapped. It was no big matter—she merely spotted a spider scuttle by, and swerved to look. It had already disappeared between the boxes, but when she looked back at the pile of papers that she was holding, she could not recall which she had last been looking at.

It took only that one moment in which she held a shred of uncertainty. Suddenly, Rin was overwhelmed by the memories of Sesshoumaru, gentle and caring, seemingly without a care in the world but Rin's wellbeing. She saw his expression as it was, slightly closed that day when they had spoken in the library.

And then she could not help that her mind went to his expression, his voice as they had been today. She thought of the coldness, the impersonal attitude he took towards her, and wondered why she had ever so much as thought about leaving.

_If I'd been a little more clever and stayed, I'd still be living with Sesshoumaru and Jaken_, she reflected, and tears overflowed again. _But then what? Have him give up everything just so I could stay there? I didn't want that—he'd have resented me eventually, I think… Or maybe not. I don't know anymore!_

This time, the tears would not stop at one or two. Each tear was followed by one more, and Rin could not even see the papers well enough to redirect her attention to them. Finally she stopped fighting.

Rin crossed her arms over a box, buried her face in her arms, and let herself cry in earnest.


	6. Chapter 4: Fragments

**Lord of My Dreams**

**Chapter 4: Fragments**

_"He wants you again," said the eunuch. Her heart leapt, but the eunuch's sympathetic look set it back into place. Apparently, he mistook her hesitation for trepidation. "You have only to play the lute," the eunuch said with a reassuring smile. "There is nothing shameful about what people say. He is our master, and it is our duty to conceal from the world his impotence."_

_She felt a pang of guilt shoot through her chest, and suddenly knew that she was deceiving this eunuch, though she knew not how. Strangely, this impotence he spoke of gave rise to an urge to defend this unseen stranger, which she quickly squashed. She dipped her head._

_She took a deep breath and stood, walking out of the kitchen. Other eunuchs and slaves were deliberately averting their eyes, and for this she was grateful, though she could not say why. The moment the kitchen door closed behind her, she breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded down the hall. Her heartbeat heightened as she walked, and she suddenly knew: she was going to see Him. She did not dread this visit at all._

_Reaching the door, she knocked demurely as was expected. The door opened almost immediately._

_"You summoned me, my Sultan?" she called, feeling something she had never felt before burn in her veins._

_"That I did," said the man with beautiful, courageous eyes, standing aside to let her in._

_The moment that the door was closed behind her, she suddenly understood the fire that was in her veins, for she had felt it a thousand times before; it was she who threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his. He responded eagerly, deepening the kiss as he pulled her closer._

_"A whole two weeks," she gasped around kisses as she ran her hands through his long hair. He was running his hands up and down her sides, as if he had not already memorized every inch of her body._

_"I was busy. My mother wished to lecture me on the importance of assigning an heir to the throne to prevent one of my brothers' sons from taking the throne." The thought of one of the Valide Sultan's nighttime rants made her shudder on her husband's behalf. But just then he picked her up to carry her to the bed, showering her shoulders and neck with kisses all the while._

_"I wish you could send for me every night." She said softly as he set her down._

_"Darling, we've been over this. You know that I must maintain that I cannot have a woman as a man, or the Valide Sultan would take over my children's lives and this dynasty would be over."_

_"If only all men were as selfless as you."_

_"On the contrary, my dear, I do this purely out of self-interest. I despise the sight of the Valide Sultan making use of her power."_

_"Had I ever given birth to a son…"_

_"It is preferable to me that you do not. Even if my mother learns of our charade, she will still have no heir to place on the throne."_

_Kissing his cheek softly, she did not reply._

_"I only regret," he said, opening her collar to press a kiss to her neck to soften his words. "That no one in my harem believes you deserve the rights of a Kadin."_

_"I don't mind that," she replied._

_He pulled away to give her a hard look. "I do."_

_They sat in each other's embrace for a while then, saying nothing and merely reveling in the fact that they were together._

_He kissed her softly, tenderly, and she held him. She thought of all the things she wanted to say, but knew that she could say none of them._

_For words of love were forbidden between them. Should the Sultan's mother ever find out, there would be hell to pay—and not only because he had claimed to be incapable of bedding a woman or fathering a child, but also because they had hidden the Sultan's daughters, rightfully Sultanas, away in the countryside. But she knew he loved her, and that he knew that she loved him. That was all she needed._

_"I only wish I could introduce the girls to their father." She didn't realize she had said it aloud until she felt him still above her. Eyes widening in horror, she tried to take it back. "No, I didn't- My lord, I really have no complaint-"_

_"Don't you dare," he growled, "call me your master or lord or Sultan when we are alone together."_

_She stared up at him—all these years, and she had never received this rebuke. She had never addressed him by any name or title when they were alone. Something warm and comfortable filled her chest, and she felt her cheeks loosen into a smile._

_But his eyes were weary and sad as he looked at her. He pulled her to him; skin on skin, but the passion of the moment was lost._

_"By Allah," he whispered, and he sounded so broken that she had to stroke his hair. "That is all that you would wish? I wish my daughters could live with me. I wish I could see them. I wish I could kiss you every night and wake up in the morning with you by my side. Sometimes, I even wish you'd go live with your brother and your children—that you wouldn't give up everything in the world to work in a place where you're miserable and she treats you like something on the bottom of her shoe!"_

_She felt her heart break. "You want me gone?"_

_He laughed a heartbroken laugh, and his arms tightened around her. "My sweet, don't you listen to anything? I want you with me, everyday and every night, and all the rest of my life I want you here. But more than that, I want you happy."_

_She looked up at him. She wished the same, only she wanted him to be happy. She knew better than to say so, for it would only make him more frustrated. Instead she shifted so she sat sideways on his lap, and moved his hand to her stomach._

_"Maybe you'll have a son this time."_

_Something indescribable went through his eyes. "I just told you-"_

_She laughed. "My brother and his wife are caring for our seven daughters. Everyone knows they're at their wit's end. You have no heir. If I have a son this time-"_

_"No son of mine will grow up with that hag for a grandmother, and no daughter of mine will live in a harem where _she_ is in charge." His eyes were hard: no more would be said on the topic. She felt her heart fall._

_"I lo-" She stopped herself just in time, and felt lost._

_"I know," he said, planting a chaste kiss to her lips. A moment of silence._

_"A slave managed to sneak in a letter from the girls three days ago."_

_"Tell me about them."_

_So she did._

* * *

Rin blinked her eyes open, slowly orienting herself to her surroundings. Memory came trickling back, and she remembered why her eyes felt swollen and her head ached.

Not allowing herself to dwell on Sesshoumaru—or the dream, which would bring her straight back to Sesshoumaru—she set about digging through the box on which her head had been resting.

By some stroke of luck, the first thing she saw when she opened the box was a diary. Kagome's diary.

Rin opened it eagerly.

_My first day of middle school! I'm so excited… Mom gave me this diary as a congratulations gift. I'm going to start keeping this everyday! But for now I've got to run to school. I'll write again tomorrow!_

Rin smiled, remembering Kagome years younger and bouncing with excitement at her first day of middle school. She flipped through the pages, finding mostly talk of Kagome's friends, cute boys, and her worries about her appearance. _O-ne-san didn't think about very much as a middle schooler, I guess,_ Rin observed with amusement.

The dates of entries grew further and further apart, until there was a sudden leap from August to April of the next year.

_I had the strangest dream—I was a little older than I am now, I think, and I fell into the well in the shed and went into the past where I had to fight demons. The strange thing is how vivid the dream was. I can still remember everything like it really happened. Strangest of all is how Inuyasha was in my dream. I didn't even think about it until I got to school this morning and looked across the room and realized that Inuyasha looks just like the person from my dream! Talk about weird…_

As the days went by, it became apparent that Kagome was having dreams nightly, and they got more vivid each night. It was through these dreams that she came to notice Miroku and Sango in real life; the vividness of the dreams seemed to baffle Kagome, to the extent that she tried jumping into the well a few times to no avail. The dreams were by no means in chronological order but definitely from the same…timeline or storyline or whatever it might be called, and in May a slipped comment from Inuyasha after dozing away in class made Kagome realize that she wasn't the only one having the dreams.

"What are you doing, Rin?" said Kagome's voice behind her, and Rin jumped out of her skin.

"O- o-ne-san!" Rin squeaked, trying to hide the diary but knowing that it was too late.

Kagome's look of dismay told Rin that she had seen what Rin was doing.

"What were you reading?" Kagome asked, trying to sound casual. Rin looked away.

"I read about your dreams."

"I see. How much?"

"Enough to have guessed that if I read a little further, I would find myself in your dreams as well."

Kagome was silent for a moment, chewing her lip nervously. "You're not supposed to find out like this," she finally said. "The thing about this spell is that it's desperately important for you to remember your past life on your own. Otherwise you create false memories based on what you've heard, and when your memories really return, you can't figure out what's real and what's not—you could be driven insane."

"It doesn't seem like it should be that big of a deal."

Kagome shook her head. "We cast a spell that had never succeeded before. We need to be cautious."

Rin hesitated. "I had a dream that I was running from wolves. I'd heard you mention something about the Sengoku Era, and I'd been reading about the era when I fell asleep and dreamed it, so I thought I'd really dreamed it up. But after reading a little about the world you describe in there…" She trailed off. Was she really certain that her dream had been a memory? But it had been no more vivid than the other dreams, when she thought about it closely.

Kagome was still chewing her lip, looking lost. Finally, she looked at Rin. "Let's go to Kaede. I'm not supposed to take you till you remember on your own, but…I'd say this is an exceptional circumstance."

"Kaede?" asked Rin in surprise. "You mean the one from Inuyasha's village in the diary? She's here too?" She had been under the impression that it was only the main gang: Kagome, Inuyasha, Miroku, Sango…and somehow herself and Sesshoumaru.

Kagome gave her a hard look. "How far did you read?"

"May 20th was the last entry I read…"

"Let me see that. I need to know what you know."

"I feel like I just happened across a state secret," Rin tried to joke as she handed Kagome the diary.

Kagome smiled, but the smile looked weary. She did not read the entries; she merely flipped through the pages, as if she needed only a glance to recall the dreams that were memories.

It was only a minute later that Kagome closed the diary and nodded. "Alright, I see. I still say we go see Kaede."

Kagome headed down the ladder and Rin followed. She meant to keep track of where Kagome stowed the diary, but by the time she reached the bottom Kagome no longer was holding it. Her heart sank.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome called. "Inuyasha, we've got to go see Kaede! Get the car!"

"What? Why so sudden?" came a grouchy reply from downstairs. It was also garbled, suggesting that he was speaking through a mouthful of instant ramen.

"Now, Inuyasha! Rin found my diary!"

There was a crash, and Inuyasha emerged from the kitchen at the same time as Rin and Kagome reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Grab your coats, let's go."

A tense silence surrounded them as they climbed into the car and Inuyasha drove it out of the driveway and down the street. Rin wanted desperately to say something, but didn't know what there was that she could say. She could not sincerely apologize for having sought out information, that much she knew for sure.

"So, Rin, how much did you read?" Inuyasha asked, his voice falsely cheerful.

"Enough to know how the four of you all met. And about Naraku. Not enough to know how I'm involved."

Inuyasha seemed visibly relieved. "Well then, hopefully there'll be no problem. Kaede will probably just yell at us for letting you get your hands on that diary, and then tell you to take your time letting the memories surface."

"Hm," said Rin, and the car lapsed back into silence.

Inuyasha pulled up at the parking lot in front of an old shrine.

"Welcome," said a friendly-looking old woman who was sweeping the pathway. Her eyes lit up to see them. "Ah! Kagome and Inuyasha. And this must be Rin! I was wondering when you would be coming!"

"It's not what you think, Kaede," said Kagome, and perhaps it was her tone of voice that wiped the smile from Kaede's face and instantly replaced it with concern. "She found and read some of my diary."

Kaede paled. "How _could_ you! I told you how important it was to-" She broke off, took a deep breath and shook her head. "But no, that doesn't matter anymore. It's been done. Now, how much did you read, Rin?" She fixed Rin with a piercing stare.

"I- I know how Kagome o-ne-san met the other three. I know a little about a fox child named Shippou, and a little about an enemy named Naraku… I don't know where I come into the picture. Or Sesshoumaru," she added as an afterthought.

Kaede's eyes grew wide with alarm. "You _told_ her about Sesshoumaru?" she asked Kagome incredulously.

"No," Kagome said slowly, turning to look at Rin. "Actually, I think there's something else we should discuss with you. Rin's been having dreams about Sesshoumaru."

"Well then," said Kaede, looking taken aback. "It's not a big deal then, is it? She almost has her own memories back."

"But that's the thing, Kaede ba-chan—she dreams of Sesshoumaru, but never in the right time or place."

Kaede fixed Rin with another speculative stare. "Come inside and I'll make some tea. I think you had better tell me everything."

* * *

"I see," said Kaede when Rin had finished, sipping her tea thoughtfully. "Well, I can tell you this, at least—the dream you had of running from wolves was a true memory."

"But it was no more vivid than the others!" protested Rin. Then she hesitated. "Well, maybe a little bit, I don't remember—but it certainly wasn't as jarring as o-ne-san described in her diary!"

"Then instead of denying all of your dreams," said Kaede, "I suggest that you begin considering that perhaps all of your dreams are true memories."

"But…"

"And you say that Sesshoumaru is there in every single dream?"

"Well, not exactly," Rin amended. "I mean, if I think about it afterwards, he always looks different, of that I'm certain. But somehow, it feels like Sesshoumaru."

Kaede considered this.

"Perhaps she's projecting memories of her last life on all of her past lives?" Kagome suggested.

"I do not know, Kagome," sighed Kaede. "I have never heard of a case like this before. Of course, the reincarnation spell had never succeeded so there really is nothing to be comparing this with, but I see no reason why Rin should have so many past lives muddled in her mind."

Rin wanted desperately to ask about this spell, but the solemn atmosphere made her reluctant to ask for any information.

"If you don't have anything useful to say," yawned Inuyasha, "maybe we should go home. You can find some manuscript on the spell or something, can't you? Meanwhile, the rest of us have to be up early tomorrow morning for work. And school, in Rin's case."

"Inuyasha!" berated Kagome. "This is important! You know how ugly a spell gone awry can get!"

"This _isn't_ a spell gone awry, this is a spell gone in a direction we don't understand. So Rin's remembering lots of past lives. It explains why it's taking her so much longer than us to regain her memories, and sitting around speculating about why isn't going to help anything."

Kagome shot her husband a glare, but could not dispute his point.

Kaede seemed reluctant to let them go, but conceded that there was nothing more she could do or say at the time being. "There is a manuscript on the spell somewhere—I shall try to obtain it and read about it a little more. In the meantime, just go about your daily lives. And Rin"—she fixed Rin with a fierce look—"do _not_ go seeking more information. Let it come to you. I cannot emphasize enough the damage that could be done by your seeking out information about your past life before you've remembered it yourself."

"You keep saying that—but I don't understand why," Rin said, commending herself for keeping her voice steady and her gaze level. She felt like she was about to explode under this odd tension. "Once I remember, my speculations will be overwritten by the memories—and even if they aren't, it's just a past life! Why should it be such a big deal if I don't remember it right?"

"Because, Rin, it is a spell that allows you to retain your memories of your past life," Kaede explained. "The spell will require you to recall the events of your past life. If you learn about your past life before you remember it… Perhaps the spell will merely overwrite the memories, or perhaps you will be able to recall which is real and which was your imagination. But there is always the possibility of the spell going berserk as it tries to insert a memory where you have created another."

"So this danger is a very _small_ possibility," Rin said.

Kagome rolled her eyes and smiled, the tension finally leaving her. "Come on, Rin, let's go. You'll remember soon enough, don't be impatient."

"Telling Rin not to be impatient? And with _that_ kind of tantalizing information?" Inuyasha laughed as he stood.

"Thanks for everything, Kaede ba-chan," smiled Kagome. "We'll contact you the moment anything happens."

"Please do," replied Kaede.

Rin was thinking of Sesshoumaru—of the majestic man she had been thinking of in her wolf dream. She found herself wondering if Sesshoumaru remembered that life too—if there was something in their past life which made him less inclined to be her friend.

_Author's Note: The Valide Sultan is the Sultan's mother, and the most powerful woman under the Ottoman Empire. A Kadin is a member of a Sultan's harem who has been officially designated as a "favorite" and has the rights of a legal wife of the Sultan._


	7. Chapter 5: Library

**Lord of My Dreams**

**Chapter 5: Library**

"Want to stop by that new café on the way home?" Kyouko suggested cheerfully.

"Sounds great! I've been wanting to go there for a while, but…" Masami broke off, smiling sheepishly.

"But you couldn't find the time," finished Aya, rolling her eyes.

"Masami _never_ has time," teased Sayu.

Rin laughed with her friends, but as they all began concurring to Kyouko's suggestion, Rin had to cut in.

"You guys have fun. I've got to stop by the library."

"Again?" groaned Aya.

"What's up with you, Rin?" asked Kyouko.

"You're busier than Masami these days," Sayu pointed out.

"Why don't you just use the University library while we're here?" Masami suggested.

"Sorry—I'm trying to solve a…family mystery of sorts. I need material from the archives at the city library."

"A family mystery?" Kyouko sounded exhasperated.

"What sort of mystery?" Sayu's curiosity was piqued.

Rin quickly smiled reassuringly. "Nothing big—actually, I'm not even really certain what I'm looking for…"

"What do you do in the archives, then?" asked Masami.

Rin hesitated, but decided that honesty couldn't hurt. "It's…an old book about demons during the Sengoku Era. It's legends, but something Kagome o-ne-san was saying the other day made me think it might be important."

"Demons?" asked Sayu incredulously.

"So why don't you just ask your sister?" Aya pointed out.

Rin bit her lip. "Apparently it's…something like a thing that each person has to figure out for themselves. Things get awkward when I so much as ask about it."

Her friends stared at her.

"I guess this means you would prefer it if we didn't tag along," Sayu sighed. Her disappointment was obvious.

Aya and Kyouko, on the other hand, looked relieved.

"I'll see you guys in Physiology tomorrow," Rin said, waving as she turned and went on her way.

"See you tomorrow!" her friends chorused. Rin didn't hear them as anything more than a slight background noise. She was already deep in thought.

Kagome, Inuyasha and Kaede had told her not to investigate her past life, and initially she had agreed. But the days had gone by turning into weeks, and her dreams refused to show her anything from the "right" time or place. Tuesday of this week had been exactly three weeks since her visit to Kaede's shrine, and nothing had happened since.

So Rin had decided to throw caution to the wind and start investigating.

Her decision was in large part due to Sesshoumaru's odd reappearance; she tried to put him from her mind, she truly did, but the more she tried not to think about it, the more she saw him cold and distant, walking away without a second glance.

She felt like she was going insane. Had she dreamed up the boy who had saved and helped her in her childhood? No—that couldn't be. Had he forgotten her? _Could_ he forget her so easily after they had spent seven years side-by-side? She didn't believe that for a moment. Had something happened—in this life or any previous one—to make him want to have nothing more to do with her?

Rin pondered the matter absently all the way to the library. When she found herself standing in front of her destination, she blinked, surprised to find that she didn't even remember getting on or off the train. She did, however, remember in vivid detail a number of recent dreams and a few precious moments from her memory.

She shook her head and headed into the library. Now was _not_ the time to be worrying about that—she would deal with the Sesshoumaru issue after she had solved this past life problem.

_Unless they're related_, she thought. But she pushed the thought away before she could start daydreaming again. In any case, the most important thing was to regain her memories of her last life. Or at least the life she shared with Kagome and Inuyasha and everyone—she wasn't sure if it was necessarily the last one.

She was heading towards the staircase that headed down into the archives when a familiar glint of silvery white hair caught the corner of her eye. She swung around, and indeed—there stood Sesshoumaru, looking sadly down at a book in his hands.

_Sadly?_ Rin blinked. She had hardly ever seen Sesshoumaru look sad. In fact, when she blinked and looked again, she couldn't even identify _why_ she thought his expression looked sad: there certainly weren't any of the usual signs that betrayed sadness. Or emotion in general.

But something about him seemed sad. Rin tried to squint at the book, but all she could tell was that it had a red cover.

Someone walked up to him and said something—quietly, of course, as it was a library, and Rin couldn't hear a word. She tried to surreptitiously move closer to the pair; eventually, she settled for slipping into the row behind them, and pressed as close to the bookcase as she could as she tried to hear what they were saying.

"…your own…just…work!"

"I will decide…works…"

Rin pressed her ear to a gap between two books. Surprisingly, she found that this made enough difference.

"But independent law firms aren't easy jobs."

"Yes. That is why I am working part time at your law firm."

"No, you're working at my place because you don't have a proper legal degree yet."

"I will at the end of the year."

The other man sighed. "Fine. But don't think I'll help you at all."

"I do not need your help."

The man's muttered comment wasn't audible to Rin. Whatever it was, Sesshoumaru apparently chose to ignore it.

"I will be there tomorrow afternoon, as planned."

"I'll see you then, in that case."

Footsteps told Rin that the man was walking away. She slipped to the far end of the row to peer into the one where Sesshoumaru still presumably was. She was just in time to see Sesshoumaru replace the red book and leave—in the opposite direction, fortunately.

As soon as he was far enough, Rin went straight to the part of the row where she had seen him standing and looked at the level of the bookshelf where she had seen him replace the book. Her heart sank: there were four books that were red, and she could not remember enough to determine which of the four it might be.

Pulling all four out of the shelf, she headed straight to a table and sat down to peruse the books.

She started by flipping quickly through each. Nothing caught her eye as specifically fascinating. They were all books on art, but one was on scrolls; one was on a specific Chinese artist; one was on European paintings; and the other was on _sumi-e_. Sighing, Rin resigned herself to a day of going through the books trying to figure out what it might have been that Sesshoumaru had been looking at.

It briefly crossed her mind that there was no guarantee that she would know what it was even if she saw it, and that what she was doing was something that could possibly be construed as stalking. Rin couldn't bring herself to take either fact very seriously.

She made herself comfortable and began to read the books.

* * *

_She was in a field, braiding his hair. His beautiful, silver hair was smooth beneath her fingers and each strand would glimmer in pure whiteness when it caught the sunlight just so._

_He sat still for her as she wove flowers into his hair as she braided. She wasn't so good at braiding, and she knew this. But his hair was too beautiful not to touch._

_She braided his beautiful white hair._

* * *

Rin blinked, realizing that she had been dozing. No surprise, she thought, glancing at her watch to see that it was a quarter to nine. She last had looked at the clock at eight-thirty.

Then she blinked, realizing that she had been dreaming—dreaming about being a little girl _braiding_ Sesshoumaru's _hair_. Complete with flowers.

_I must be more overworked than I'd thought_, Rin thought to herself, shaking her head. The sooner she forgot that dream the better. But she still felt as if she could feel the silk strands of his hair beneath her fingers, and see the glimmer of the sunlight that made his hair a white sheen.

His hair was white, yes, and shiny and beautiful…but she had never seen it _shine_ like it had in her dream, as if it were made of strands of white gold.

"The library will be closing in ten minutes. Please either return the books to the shelving rack or to the counter for check out. I repeat, the library will be closing in ten minutes…"

Rin almost jumped out of her skin when the announcement began. She had forgotten that the city library closed at nine. How long had it been since she had last sat at the library this late?

She briefly considered whether to return the books which she had already perused to the shelving racks. But she quickly discarded the idea—there was nothing worse than to disregard perused sources when one was searching something without know what one was searching for.

Standing, Rin gathered the books into her arms, retrieved her school bag and headed to the check out counter.

As the librarian was checking out the books for her, Rin absently remembered that she had in fact come to the library for the archives before she had gotten distracted by Sesshoumaru.

_Oh well. I can always come back another day_.

There was no hurry, after all. In fact, it would be ideal if she could remember more before she had the chance to peruse the archives.

The dream floated into the surface of her mind. Rin shoved it away with a vengeance, and not just because she found it unrealistic. There was something about the memory of the texture and the light of that hair that made her chest tighten and her throat constrict.

Thanking the librarian, Rin gathered up the books and headed out of the library. _I'm catching a cold,_ she told herself firmly. The lack of conviction behind the statement she ignored.


	8. Chapter 6: Investigation

**Lord of My Dreams**

**Chapter 6: Investigation**

Rin sighed as she took off her shoes once through the door. "I'm home!" she called over the sound of television coming from the living room.

"Welcome home, Rin," Kagome's voice called back. "I wasn't sure if you'd eaten or not, so there's some food in the fridge that you can warm up if you're hungry."

"Thanks, but I've eaten," Rin lied. She was eager to get back to the books, and could not even think of eating.

"Alright—and for the record, I _do_ appreciate calls—or even texts—telling me what to expect for supper," Kagome called as Rin began up the stairs.

Normally, Rin would have felt guilty; at the moment, she was too preoccupied. "Sorry, I lost track of time." Kagome said something about a family get-together on Sunday which Rin absently acknowledged without really hearing. Rushing up the stairs, she entered her room and closed the door behind her. Spreading her books out on her desk, she resumed going through them as if she had never so much as paused.

It was midnight when she had gone through each book at least once extremely thoroughly. She was sure that she could recognize a large number of pictures and even some sentences at this point; however, her search had yielded nothing that she could say was obviously something that would have caught Sesshoumaru's attention.

Rin sighed—she seemed to be doing that a lot lately—and set the books to one side of her desk. Digging through her school bag, she pulled out her homework and set about finishing what was due the following day.

There wasn't much to be done, but her level of distraction was such that she would frequently find herself staring absently at the pile of books lost in thoughts about Sesshoumaru and various dreams. Thus it was well past three when she finally finished and went to sleep.

For the first time in a long time, Rin slept a dreamless sleep.

* * *

The following afternoon found Rin in the library again, only this time in the archives with the manuscripts of some old documents detailing lifestyles, medicines, manners of dress, family histories and even demons of the _Sengoku_ era.

Getting in had not been as much of a difficulty as it could have been—Rin had been a frequent visitor of the library before she got busy with the entrance examinations for college. She had enough friends among the library staff who knew and trusted her that they were willing to bend a few rules and allow her to access the archives—normally, one had to place an order, and a week or so later would receive scanned copies of the requested documents. Since Rin had no particular document in mind, she was grateful for the connections that allowed her to peruse the ancient documents as she pleased.

Rin was trying to keep the details about demons at a minimum—after all, mythology only helped so much—when she came across a reference to a Lord of the Western Lands whose name was Sesshoumaru. It was a small mention, at the bottom of a long paragraph painting a sketchy picture of demon nobility. Sesshoumaru was referred to as the last Lord of the Western Lands, who had vanished without a trace one day and simply had never been replaced as the world entered an age where demons began to decline.

Rin narrowed her eyes at this thoughtfully. _Reincarnation, sure—but the same name?_

She only pondered this question for a moment before she copied the paragraph into her notebook word for word and flipped to the end to find the source that the author had referred to for that paragraph.

Her heart leapt to realize that it was a familiar title—she had come across references to this document many a time in reference to demons. Perhaps she should not have been so quick to dismiss demons as nothing more than mythology. Perhaps the "demons" referred to were a powerful, tyrannical family or class of nobility that had died out.

Yet when Rin thought back to some of her more recent dreams—the ones that she had decided were probably from the _Sengoku_ era if they were, indeed, memories—she thought of the mystery she felt each time she woke and remembered Sesshoumaru. She thought of the shining of his hair, and the fur muff that she always wanted to refer to as his 'tail.' She thought of a dram that she had had one day when she had drifted off during class, where Sesshoumaru had seemed to possess the speed of light and battled fiercely to protect her without batting an eye, and sometimes armed with nothing but his…_claws_. She had desperately tried to brush this off as a daydream, but now it began to occur to her that perhaps this was her problem—perhaps she was too quick to deny what she did not consider realistic.

Rin went back to the shelves to search for the reference on demons: _The Demon Encyclopedia_, it was called, and the author was unknown. Rin searched under the history section, and then the mythology section to no avail. Finally she turned on the lone computer in the dimly lit, dusty room and searched.

The library had no record of such a book. So Rin tried the databases of her school library and a few other city libraries. No database turned up any results beyond popular fiction.

Rin thus chose to change her approach and tried running a web search.

Still, her findings were meager at best. The most detail that she could find was that the Demon Encyclopedia had existed at _Rokuonji_ a little over a century ago. The most recent document that referenced it as far as she could find was a short historical research piece on the changes in lifestyle before and after the _Sengoku_ era. However, a quick search for the author revealed that she had died in 1965; also that she had been born, raised and died in Kyoto.

Rin only thought a moment before snapping her book shut and turning off the computer. She found herself sighing again as she carefully replaced the documents where they belonged.

It was not as though she could run off to Kyoto that very evening. She could make it a day trip the next day, but that would still cost a great deal of money that she would essentially be smuggling out of Kagome's savings.

But Kagome knew that Rin was not above researching her previous life—or lives, as the case may be. If Rin suddenly declared that she wanted to spend a day in Kyoto, Kagome was bound to be suspicious.

This was how Rin decided to spend the following day on an undeclared trip to Kyoto. Certainly, there was a chance that Kagome would figure out that Rin had been up to something, but once Rin had been there and back there would be nothing that could be done to undo it.

* * *

Though it had seemed like perfectly good weather early in the morning, it was raining by the time she got off the train in Kyoto. Rin had never been more grateful that she always kept a foldable umbrella in her handbag.

That was only the smallest of her problems.

She had not expected that it would be easy to find someone who was willing to discuss with her possible locations of a manuscript that had existed in the temple over a century ago, but she had also failed to anticipate how entirely _difficult_ it might be.

First of all, the surroundings of _Rokuonji_ were entirely oriented towards tourists, and any inquiry she made about the manuscript seemed to inevitably flow into a conversation about the fire in 1950 and how nothing would have survived it.

It was at the fifth such conversation that Rin finally lost the ability to calmly excuse herself.

"I _know_ there was a terrible fire! I _know_ that nothing would have survived! The document I'm talking about was in this temple a century and a decade ago, and I'm willing to bet anything that it was moved at some point before the fire, or at least _copied_. There are so many documents that reference it, and the most recent one I could find was dated 1961. I simply have no idea where to look for the manuscript or any possible copy, and this was my best lead."

"What about the 1961 document? Did you look into that? The author?"

Rin shook her head. "The author's dead. I might inquire to the place that was once her residence, but first I thought I'd try-"

"I'd suggest you try the author's house first," suggested the man with a shrug. "Even if you're right and the manuscript or a copy was moved out of the temple before the fire, the records of _that_ transaction would have been destroyed in the fire. I can tell you with a reasonable amount of confidence that you'd be hard-pressed to find a person around here who truly remembers anything that happened around here before the fire—even more so since you don't know when exactly the transaction might have happened."

Rin sighed, deflated. "Thank you."

The man—a random passerby who had heard the end of one of her conversations with a local guide and had asked what she was doing—looked at her speculatively.

"Who did you say the author of that particular 1961 document was?"

"I didn't. But her name was Shinobu Eri."

The man grinned in a friendly manner. "I thought that might be the case. She was my grandmother—it'll be my house that you're looking for."

Rin blinked, taken aback. "What- what a coincidence."

The man's grin vanished and he looked at her speculatively for a moment. "Why don't we have a cup of coffee somewhere and you tell me what document this is that you're looking for?"

Rin could only agree.

So it was that she found herself sitting across from the man in a downtown café a mere ten minutes later.

"Am I right when I guess that you're looking for the _Territories and Daimyo in the Kansai_?"

Rin shook her head. "Actually, I'm looking for a manuscript called the _Demon Encyclopedia_." She felt her face flush as she spoke, as if she were admitting something terribly shameful. She tried to force herself not to let it show, but the amusement on the man's face made her think that he had noticed—or maybe he was simply amused by the fact that she was so seriously searching for such a document.

"Well," said the man, leaning back in his chair. "That's something of a surprise."

Rin didn't get the chance to ask what part was so surprising before the man continued speaking.

"My grandmother was a great historian—she had a lot of really great books lying around in our home. Actually, I'd have to say that it's the influence of her books that convinced me to go into history myself. So I've saved almost all of her books—except for one notable exception.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" he suddenly asked, pulling a cigarette pack and a lighter out of his jacket pocket.

Rin mutely shook her head.

"Thanks. Anyway, there was this one document—the _Demon Encyclopedia_, as I'm sure you've guessed. It was something she'd obtained from _Rokuonji_ shortly before the fire, and something she'd always treasured as much as any other historical document.

"I felt differently when I inherited her library—as far as I was concerned, it was the one blemish on an otherwise flawless surface. Yet, for some reason, there was a huge market for that book. So when I was having some financial difficulties, I sold it."

Rin pretended she wasn't feeling impatient as anything. "To whom? Where is it now?"

The man smiled wryly at her. "Ah, that's the thing… See, historical documents are actually a pain to sell properly—all sorts of authentications and tests that have to be done, and each costing more than the last. I really needed money, so I sold it to someone who was willing to pay a slightly lower price without going through all the tests…I can't say that the information that I have is accurate at all."

"The black market," Rin stated, almost to herself. The man only offered a wane smile.

Their coffee arrived, and Rin absently sipped hers in silence. The man said nothing either, and Rin was glad of this. She considered the little she knew about illegal markets and decided that she probably had little hope of tracing the book through this man. Still…

"Could I have the man's contact information anyway? And whatever details you remember?"

"It might not-"

"I know, that's alright. I intend to do some searching of my own anyway."

The man sighed. "Alright; would you mind coming by my office after this? Whatever records I kept I have there."


	9. Chapter 7: Searching

**Lord of My Dreams**

**Chapter 7: Searching**

"I'm sorry to tell you that that particular product has already been sold." The man did not sound particularly sorry.

"What?" He let his voice be low and soft, designed to intimidate by what it did not contain.

"Reserved." The shopkeeper did not sound particularly intimidated. "Promised to a certain young lady who left…oh, less than an hour ago."

"Really? And you don't think that this…_lady_ could be dissuaded?"

"She did not seem the type."

Sesshoumaru swallowed an annoyed sigh. The black market was convenient in its simplicity to navigate, because the people who functioned in the black market rarely had incentives other than money. Problems emerged with the extremely rare individual who had other incentives. Sesshoumaru, however, did not trust this shopkeeper's judgment of the alleged lady's character.

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?" Phrased as a light question, a threat in disguise.

"Customer confidentiality prevents me from doing so." A light smile—either an idiot or a force to be reckoned with.

"I have money."

"Very well. How about this valuable manuscript on Ayurvedic medicine?" Either this man had a reason for wanting Sesshoumaru annoyed, or the woman had offered a significant amount.

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes. "I require only the aforementioned text, and I am willing to pay several times its value to obtain it.

"It is promised to the young lady."

Not good enough, then. "How much did she offer? I will triple that."

"Ah, but it is not about the money."

Sesshoumaru thought fast under the glare that he leveled on the shopkeeper. If not money, what was the shopkeeper looking for? Perhaps the woman was a…personal friend. But no matter—Sesshoumaru would find out what it was and counter it.

"I'll be back," he informed the man.

The man remained expressionless as Sesshoumaru turned his heel and walked out of the shop, thinking furiously of ways to discover the identity of the woman. If the shopkeeper could not be dissuaded, perhaps the woman would.

The dreams had begun two nights after the night that Rin had not come home. Maybe they would have begun the night she hadn't come home, except for the fact that Sesshoumaru hadn't been able to sleep that night, or the next. He had waited for Rin to return that first night, and then the following morning had set out on a search. He spent two days straight looking for her, and finally passed out on the couch in the early hours of the morning on the third day that she had been missing.

He could still remember the dream vividly, and it had shaken him more than he cared to admit.

But Rin had been alright all along. She had found a family, been adopted.

Sesshoumaru had not been informed of this until a week after Rin had first gone missing, and then only by chance. After a week of barely eating or sleeping, doing nothing but scouring the city for Rin, Jaken had finally forced Sesshoumaru to go home just once. Sesshoumaru would have disagreed, but Jaken threatened to tell his father of Sesshoumaru's recent living habits.

Faced with the threat of being dragged back to his father's home permanently, Sesshoumaru had allowed the rare visit to his family.

It just so happened that they already had a visitor—Inuyasha's girlfriend and her family. It also just so happened that Inuyasha's girlfriend's family was adopting another daughter.

Sesshoumaru had experienced a wide range of emotions when he had walked by the living room and spotted Rin being hugged by his father's wife. Pain, that Rin had chosen to leave him. Anger, that she had not so much as mentioned her intentions to him. Fury, that of all people, she had chosen the family of his damned half-brother's girlfriend. Frustration, that he could not understand how these events could have possibly played out. And underlying it all was an excruciating relief that threatened to overwhelm him with the knowledge that Rin was _safe and well_.

He would have turned his heel and left. But Rin turned to look at him, and so Sesshoumaru leveled one of his sternest looks on her. He had wanted to glare—but he had never glared at Rin, and found that he could not start now. Rin had flinched and looked so sorry and apologetic that Sesshoumaru had melted.

Sesshoumaru was used to being in charge of situations. So, knowing nothing, he was hardly going to charge into the room and admit that he had no idea what was going on. He only lifted his eyes from hers to cast a pointed glance down the hallway, then meet her eyes again before he took a few steps so that he was no longer visible from the doorway. Rin seemed to understand, for he heard her mutter an excuse about the bathroom and quickly excuse herself from he room.

_She stopped when she turned into the hallway and found Sesshoumaru standing not two steps in front of her._

_Sesshoumaru heard his father's comment—"Are you sure we should let her go alone? I mean, we don't even really-" and then Inuyasha's mother quickly hushed her husband. Sesshoumaru gritted his teeth and felt the last of his attachment to his family crumble to dust._

_He looked at Rin, but she was smiling as always, and more brightly than she had even hinted at in that room with his family. Sesshoumaru briefly wondered what could make her so eager to leave him if she smiled this way only for him, and then pushed the thought away. Of course she smiled this way to other people too—she was only nervous around new groups of people._

_The thought brought to mind his anger again, and he took her by the arm and dragged her down the hall to the library._

_A glance around told him that they were alone. So he closed the door and for the first time, leveled a cold glare on Rin._

_"You wish to be adopted."_

_"Well, I thought it would be for the best-"_

_"The best- You do not even mention a word to Jaken or myself, and step up and leave—what are you attempting? You practically forced Jaken to have a heart attack!"_

_Rin looked taken aback, and apologetic. "I'm sorry—but Sess, I thought… You know, if I'm not there then you could go to Harvard."_

_She knew that he had been accepted to Harvard. Sesshoumaru felt the anger leave him, and only a sort of exhaustion was left in its wake. This was a skillful manipulation—she was taking what she wanted while insisting that it was best for him. Well, if that was what she wanted, then Sesshoumaru would not object._

_"Very well. I will go abroad to college." Rin cast her eyes down, and Sesshoumaru wished that she would gloat. "You will live with them—but you do not want to mention that you were with me. Or that you knew me." They already had doubts about Rin's character. Sesshoumaru's involvement in the situation would only make it worse._

_Rin averted her eyes. "I told them that I lived by scraping by where I could. That my tuition was paid by someone whom I didn't know, who happened to learn of my situation and thought I should go to school."_

_She had already cut him out of her life. The exhaustion prickled in Sesshoumaru's throat and lungs, so he swallowed. "Very well. Be happy." And he turned and left her, furious with himself that he could not even bring himself to say one unkind word to her despite her abandonment._

It was out of spite that Sesshoumaru went to Oxford rather than Harvard. He told no one where he was going, and merely packed and left one day. It was not long before his father presumably figured out where he was, for he received regular birthday cards. He threw these away without a second glance, and threw himself into his studies. Sesshoumaru was a favorite of many professors, and somehow, by the time he graduated four years later, his business degree had also become a history degree.

Sesshoumaru found a law firm in London where he did an internship for the next year, with the promise that he would be offered an official position when the year was up. At the end of the year, he was offered an even better position at a prestigious law firm in Tokyo. Not giving it a second thought, Sesshoumaru accepted the better offer.

It wasn't until he had signed the papers that it suddenly occurred to him that he was close to Rin—she could be around any corner, anywhere in the city. Not a day went by that he didn't think of her, but over the years she had become a beautiful memory that haunted him but would never enter his life again. Yet after reaching Tokyo, he found himself peering around every corner, scouring faces in every crowd to find her; and so it was that Sesshoumaru had made the decision to intentionally seek her out, under the guise of visiting his family.

But Rin was happy, energetic and beautiful, and somehow this made Sesshoumaru miserable. There was nothing in her of despair, loneliness or regret—and it wasn't until he saw their absence that he realized how much he had been counting on them.

Counting on the fact that she missed him enough to dream about him every night as he did of her.

For after that first dream, every dream that he dreamed was of her. They were in different times and they were different people, but Sesshoumaru never once doubted that the girl in his dreams was Rin.

It should have disturbed him deeply the morning in his second month at Oxford when he awoke in a sweat and found himself wanting Rin in a way that was anything but platonic. It felt only _right_, and he drank dangerous amounts of coffee for a week after that in a desperate attempt not to dream of her because she was barely thirteen (it didn't matter that she had been older in the dream) and he was _not a pedophile,_ damn it!

It would have been nice if the feelings had been mutual. But he supposed that there was no chance of that the moment that she had chosen to leave.

Instead, he took note of the fact that as of late, his previously random dreams seemed to be focusing on one set of people in one single time period. He had used cues that he remembered from these oddly vivid dreams to narrow the time period down to the Sengoku Era. So he had begun researching the time period, and found himself drawn more and more to mentions of demons during these times.

Unfortunately, there only seemed to be one surviving manuscript of such a writing—_Demon Encyclopedia_—and this had been reserved by some "young lady" not an hour before. So it was that Sesshoumaru found himself standing patiently in an alley across from the small pawnshop, waiting for this mysterious woman to arrive and claim the book.

Sesshoumaru briefly considered calling Jaken and leaving the job to him, but concluded that this was a job he preferred to do alone.

* * *

_He sat in his carriage, looking almost absently out the window. He knew that there was a chance that she (who?) would be waiting; he would not allow his carriage to pass her standing there in the cold. The snow was thick, and cold like this night's could be fatal to those like her, who were generally clothed only in thin rags._

_Indeed, some way ahead down the road he could see a familiar brown figure standing, trembling, at the side of the road as though waiting for something—someone. As they came up to the figure and he confirmed that it was, indeed, she, he gave a sharp tap on the carriage roof to signal the coachman to stop. When it jerked to a halt, he opened the door and stepped out to the girl without bothering to wait for the footman. He wrapped his arms around her thin, frail, shivering form, hoping to warm her at least a little._

_"What are you doing here?" he asked. She looked down in shame. "Were you thrown out again?" He saw her cheeks heat up despite the cold—he had hit the nail right on the head. "Then come."_

_She looked up at him, delight illuminating her face. He gave a small, almost imperceptible, smile and reached out to help her into the carriage._

_"Wait a second, you!"_

_He turned around to see a man dressed in rags (though in considerably better condition than the girl's) running towards him. The man froze for a moment upon seeing his face, and he felt a surge of satisfaction that this man knew exactly who he was._

_"You- Your Majesty!" the man exclaimed in surprise. "I- I apologize. I di- didn't mean to offend you, I- I am most sorry for wh- what I-"_

_"Your apology is accepted," he said calmly. The girl had frozen beside him, and he was eager to leave. He squeezed her hand, and noted the faint relaxing of her tense muscles. But he also noted that most of the tension was still there. Obviously the man was someone that she did not want to see._

_Instantly, an uncharacteristic wave of anger came over him. The girl that he knew feared nothing—so why should she fear this peasant?_

_He thought he knew the answer. She had new bruises on her body everyday, and he had met her, after all, because she had come begging to the palace kitchens with barely enough strength to stand for lack of food._

_He shoved down the anger and gently urged her into the carriage, noting how gratefully and eagerly she obliged._

_"Henceforth, she will be in my care," he stated coldly to the man._

_"Wh- excuse me?" the man exclaimed in surprise. "But- but Your Majesty!"_

_"Yes?"_

_"You…you can't do that! I paid a fortune for her!"_

_He stared at the man. The anger that welled up in his chest was twice as violent than before._

_"Slavery is illegal in my kingdom," he stated in a voice frosty with hate. Then he turned to his coachman and footman. "Throw him in the dungeons."_

_And then he turned his back on the piece of vermin and entered the carriage. When he saw her curled up in a ball on the seat, his hate for the man amplified just as his love for her almost overwhelmed him._

_Sitting beside her, he pulled her into his lap and held her to him. Her hands fisted in his robe desperately—something she had never done before. The heart that he had not realized existed until only recently was filled with an emotion that he could not recognize as he buried his face in her hair and rocked her comfortingly._

_They did not speak or move, even as the carriage began to move. He stroked her hair, praying to a God he scarcely believed in to help her._

_He almost collapsed with relief when her trembles calmed and she reached back to comb her fingers through his hair—a gesture she always made when he held her. It comforted them both at once, though neither had ever admitted it to be so._

_The King of Wales dropped a kiss to his love's head, wondering how she would react if he told her that he wished to make her his Queen._

* * *

Sesshoumaru blinked and opened his eyes. He quickly forced his consciousness in to alertness, furious with himself for having allowed such a lapse.

He looked towards the shop to see someone coming out.

The first thing he noticed was that she was Rin.

The second thing he noticed was that she was holding the _Demon Encyclopedia_.

Ire was too weak a word to describe Sesshoumaru's emotions in that moment. He stopped out of the alley and directly into Rin's path.

"Rin," he said.

Rin looked up at him, eyes wide. She hugged the book to her chest.

Sesshoumaru was still caught up in the soft affection that the dreams forced him to feel for Rin, so he forced the anger not to dissipate, leveling a glare on her and growling in his lowerst, most intimidating tone.

"What are you doing, and why do you have that book?"

Sesshoumaru had never taken his _intimidating_ persona with Rin, so he expected her to back away, to cower in fear. Instead, something seemed to snap—he could almost hear the sharp consonant of a rubber band giving in after having been stretched too far—and she glared right back.

"What business is it of yours?"

"That is none of your business."

"And to think that you used to lecture me about eloquence."

Sesshoumaru was proud that he did not blink, because he had not expected her to deal sharp replies. "Clearly I should not have wasted my time."

Something flashed in Rin's eyes. "Oh, so _now_ you come to this conclusion. If only you'd realized that a few years earlier. What do you want?"

"That book that you're holding."

"No."

They glared at each other.

"I could tell your father that you've been frequenting illegal shops." Now, that was not very smart, Sesshoumaru noted with a pang of something like disappointment.

"I could tell your sister the same. Seeing as how you live with your sister and I have no contact with my father, I believe that you would be more inconvenienced than I."

Rin bit her lip, but did not drop her glare. No one else had been so fearless before him, and Sesshoumaru had not realized how much he truly missed her until now.

"Whatever—I paid for this. You're not getting it."

Sesshoumaru would _not_ lower himself to the same level of argument by rolling his eyes. "Wonderful. I hope you don't lock your windows at night."

Rin blinked. "Why would you-" Comprehension dawned, and a look of alarm of unwarranted caliber made its way across her face. "You _wouldn't_."

Probably not, but he leveled his look at her.

"You _would_," she groaned, eyes wide in horror. "What, you're into organized crime now?"

Sesshoumaru was coming closer and closer to irrational laughter, and it was unacceptable that this break out in front of Rin. "Only you would think that sneaking into one teenager's room to steal one book was an act of organized crime."

He turned and began to walk away gracefully.

"What, that's it? You're leaving?" Rin sounded confused, but Sesshoumaru didn't dare turn around for fear that he would smile.

"Good night, Rin."

He didn't stop until he turned a corner. Then he leaned against a wall and felt the first smile to creep across his face in five years.

Lord help him, but he was hopelessly in love with a teenager who thought nothing of him.


	10. Chapter 8: Confrontation

**Lord of My Dreams**

**8: Confrontation**

_She was sneaking from somewhere to somewhere else. She could not remember where from or where to, or what she carried in the sack over her shoulder, only that it was very important that she get where she was going quickly—and that no one see her on the way._

_She reached a door at the side of the barn, and opened it as quietly as she could. She saw many men, wearing only ragged tunics, sleeping in the hay. She snuck by them, trying her best not to waken any of them. She came to a stall that had belonged to a mare that had been killed during a raid of the village. She knew at once that He was there._

_She unbolted and opened the stall gate as quietly as she could, and entered, reaching over the door to bolt it again once she was inside._

_He was there, leaning against the wall beside the stall door, so that he would not be seen from outside unless someone knew to look. His body was bruised, but his eyes were strong as ever and the way he sat was as regal and powerful as if he had been a king. Only she could have discerned the exhaustion from the angle of his head and the slight droop about the corners of his eyes._

_"Show me your back," she whispered, urging him to turn._

_He did so without argument, and she smiled, suddenly knowing that there had been a time when he would not have turned his back to her. She lifted his tunic, and he complied in her wordless request to remove it._

_The welts on his back from the whip were horrendous. She did not comment on his defiance of his superiors, knowing that he had never listened before and would only resent her for bringing it up again._

_She took some herbs from her sack and applied them to his back._

_"They're sending me away soon," she whispered._

_"I heard."_

_"I'm to marry a man of some importance."_

_"What every Irishman wants for his daughter."_

_"I would rather be stolen by a Viking."_

_He froze beneath her fingers._

_"I have never stolen a maiden away."_

_"No," she agreed, thinking of his unsociable outlook on life. "But you must have taken a maiden's…virtue."_

_He turned around to look at her squarely. "I have no interest in the rape of women."_

_She smiled suddenly, more deeply in love than ever. "I want you. It would not be rape."_

_He smiled wryly. "An Irish maiden asking for a Viking to take her virtue." He reached up to run a hand along her cheek reverently. "I have never met anyone such as you. You were never even afraid of me—yet even my own crew feared me."_

_She leaned into his touch, and a tear slipped down her cheek. "I don't want to marry him. He's an old man, and I will be his sixth wife. Please—if I must lose my virtue, if I bear a child, I want it to be yours."_

_He drew her to him, and her heartbeat quickened—and a moment later she felt disappointed, knowing that he had no intention of complying. He only meant to comfort her. She knew, then, that he would let her cry, let her calm, and then send her back to bed._

_So, she thought, this is the end._

_But if that was the case, why not endeavor to seduce him? Many women managed it on other men, and he himself had admitted that she was special to him._

_She shifted to draw up her skirt out of the way, and sat so that she was kneeling with a knee on either side of his lap, her hands on his shoulders. Hands automatically settling on her waist, he looked up at her with seemingly emotionless eyes—then she noticed the slight arc of his eyebrows, and knew that he was surprised._

_There she knelt for a few moments, feeling his shoulders strong and firm beneath her fingers; the brush of his breath on her breast. She wondered what it would feel like if he moved that small amount forward, where his mouth would be touching the swell of her breast through her thin dressing gown. The thought sent a shiver down her spine, and she tensed her thighs as her breasts brushed his nose._

_She uttered his name, and held his eyes with hers as she slowly lowered herself onto his lap—and almost jumped back up again in shock when she realized that there was already something there. And felt her face flush bright red a moment later when she realized what it was._

_She lowered herself again, trying not to shudder as the something pressed against her through layers of clothing. She realized that this was exactly what was supposed to happen—only without the layers of clothing. Another shudder ran through her body._

_"I…didn't think I'd done anything yet," she whispered, shifting in embarrassment._

_His hands came to her hips, holding her still._

_"As I have said—you are unlike anyone I've ever known."_

_"You want me."_

_"I treasure you."_

_"So make me yours." He made to move away, and she brought her hands over his to hold him in place ._

_"They would kill us both if they found out," he said, but his thumbs were moving, stroking her. "The Irish have no need for ruined daughters."_

_"I don't care," she said, and pressed her lips to his. When nothing happened immediately, she began making little nips and licks at his lips, hoping to entice him to do something by conveying her impatience. "No matter where I go, or to whom I am wed, you are my Lord. You shall remain forever in my heart and mind as the only man who can truly possess any part of me. I love-"_

_And then his mouth had silenced hers. As his tongue reached forth to stroke hers, she almost didn't notice that he was removing his hands from where she had placed them; he wrapped one arm about her waist, and his other hand he brought to her cheek. He pulled her close, and kissed her as if he would die if they weren't close enough. She whimpered, and shifted her body, trying to meld their bodies together. He broke the kiss when he bent her back so far that they collapsed in a pile in the hay._

_"If you feel the need to make a noise, bite my shoulder," he told her between kisses as their hands slipped under cloth, endeavoring to strip one another of clothing without pulling away._

_She was lost in a haze of sensation after sensation then. She ended up biting his shoulder so hard that she drew blood. He never made a sound, save for a sharp gasp at the end._

_The moments she spent in his arms afterwards felt like forever. But then she saw the sky outside, in its beautiful shade of turquoise, as if in anticipation of the dawn._

_Then it hit home that it was all over. She curled up in his arms and began to cry._

* * *

Rin woke up feeling the coldness of the space beside her and the wetness on her face. A few more tears leaked at the memory of the sheer despair of knowing that there was no hope for her and her beloved, and then she remembered that Sesshoumaru was _unreasonable_ and bordering on _insane_. She launched herself out of bed wiping her face furiously on her sleeve, and resolved _not _to think about Sesshoumaru today.

She had been so angry after the strange encounter the previous day that by the time she got home, she had tossed the book onto the desk and went straight to bed to not think about Sesshoumaru.

Apparently, her dreams had had other ideas. On one hand, it was the first time in a week that she had dreamed of a time period that wasn't the _Sengoku Era_. On the other hand, she would rather have dreamed about the same time period than dream what she had just dreamed.

Rin was _not _going out today, because every man she met would remind her of Sesshoumaru. She hoped that she could go through the day not so much as running into Inuyasha, because she was certain that one look at him would show her only his resemblance to Sesshoumaru.

"Rin, are you up?" called Kagome, accompanied by a knock on the door.

"Yeah—what is it?" Rin replied, making no move to open the door.

"We're leaving in thirty minutes, just giving you a heads up!" Kagome's footsteps retreated down the hallway accompanied by calls of, "INUYASHA! Where are those earrings your mother gave me!"

_Leaving?_ Rin wracked her brain, trying to recall what was happening today.

To her alarm, her memory turned up a matching card—a family dinner with Inuyasha's parents.

_At least Sesshoumaru won't be there—he hates that family,_ Rin reassured herself, but the resemblance of Sesshoumaru's father resembled him even more than Inuyasha.

She dragged her feet over to the closet and began to dress, resigned to a day of smiling and chatting with Inuyasha's only too friendly parents.

* * *

There were a lot of hugs and warm greetings at the door, and then Izayoi ushered them into the living room—where Sesshoumaru was sipping a glass of wine on the sofa.

Rin bit her lip. Sesshoumaru met her eye and gave a small, secret smirk. A thrill shot through Rin that should have been more terrifying than exciting, but wasn't.

She sat down across from him and gratefully accepted the glass of wine. Inuyasha's parents were rather…unorthodox, and had been allowing her to drink at these dinners since she was sixteen. Usually she refused. But just now, a little relaxation seemed like a good idea.

Kagome and Inuyasha did not bat an eye at Sesshoumaru's presence. Rin tried to recall if she had been told that he would be here. If she had, she'd forgotten. Kagome and Inuyasha were eyeing her surreptitiously—or what they thought was surreptitiously. Rin was tempted to roll her eyes, but Sesshoumaru caught her eye and offered that quirk of an eyebrow that he had always offered to share a secret joke when Jaken thought he was being particularly clever…and wasn't.

Rin quickly averted her eyes to keep the smile from breaking out on her face. A fuzzy warmth was growing in her chest that she had never felt outside of her dreams. It was exhilarating, and her eyes kept darting back to Sesshoumaru, who rarely met her eyes directly, but his gaze always hovered nearby; he was watching her out of the corner of his eye.

Kagome, Inuyasha, and his parents chatted about current events and neither Rin nor Sesshoumaru contributed more than the occasional monosyllable. They migrated over to the dinner table after half an hour's talking, and somehow Rin found herself sitting across from Sesshoumaru.

And then the topic shifted.

"So, Sesshoumaru…this is what, the second time that we're seeing you in five years?"

The comment jerked Rin back into reality, and she looked at Sesshoumaru. For the first time since Sesshoumaru first caught her eye that night, he had let her out of his sight to look coldly at his father.

"Indeed," he remarked calmly.

"How was college in England?" asked Izayoi.

"England?" Rin broke out. "I thought- but you were going to Harvard!"

The table went quiet. Rin felt all eyes at the table turn to her, and Sesshoumaru glanced at her. A shock ran down her spine, but not the pleasant kind. Thenhe looked away.

"I never was going to Harvard," Sesshoumaru told her, and his voice was colder and harder than it had even been the day before.

In some corner of her mind, Rin knew that this was where she should comment about some overheard conversation and backtrack. But she had pivoted her life around the fact that he was going to Harvard.

"What…what happened?" Her voice was weak and came out more like a squeak than a voice.

Sesshoumaru opened his eyes and after a moment, met her eyes squarely. "What do you think happened?"

"But-but-" Rin stuttered, feeling her mind shutting down.

Sesshoumaru was eyeing her sharply. "Why was Harvard so important to you?"

Rin jumped to her feet and slammed her hands down on the table. "I left so that _you could go to Harvard!_ Not so you could go to some school in England I've never heard of!"

Sesshoumaru placed his glass down. It clanked on the coaster, and Rin knew that he was more agitated than he was letting on. _Good riddance,_ Rin thought, half insane with confusion and frustration. "And what business of yours was it, Rin, which college I went to?"

Rin was furious. "I never asked you to take me away. I never asked you to defy every law and moral and social convention in existence to look after me. I never asked you to give up your possibilities for me!"

Sesshoumaru's eyes flashed, and he stood to face her in an uncharacteristic display of anger. "I will attribute this to the influence of my idiot half-brother and his wife, because the Rin I knew had better sense than you."

"Do _not_ insult them—that's my sister and brother-in-law."

"Ah, of course." _And I'm just the outsider,_ the tone said.

"That's not what I _meant_," Rin responded to the unspoken remark.

"And what did you mean?"

"I meant- I mean—you gave up so much for me. I didn't want you to give up anything more than you already had." Her voice growing quiet as she admitted it.

"There was nothing I did reluctantly."

"There was nothing in it for you!" Desperation now, for a justification that would make the world make sense again.

"There was everything in it for me." He said it softly, like a pledge.

"But—but Jaken always said-"

"When did you ever trust Jaken's word over mine?"

She blinked. "Never."

"So explain to me why you ran out and threw yourself into the arms of the first family that would take you."

"I didn't!" Shock, that he could think such a thing of her.

Disbelief in his eyes, and she knew at once that he had lived the past five years in misery and pain—thinking that she had deserted him. For she was as critical a piece of his life as he was of hers. She had had the conviction to hold on to that he would return as soon as he was done with his education, and that it was for the best; he had harbored the illusion that she no longer needed him.

Rin was leaning over the table, suddenly needing more than anything to touch him. "I would _never_ have sought to leave you," she whispered, a promise made with her palms cupping his cheeks.

"Yet you did."

"Kagome asked where I lived. I panicked and told her…well, what I told you I told her. She took me to her family, and adoption came up, and I thought of Harvard, and…"

She trailed off and looked away, feeling foolish. It had been five years, she realized. Five years of believing that she thought nothing of him. She had been thirteen when he left, and hardly an object of anything but friendship to him. How many women had been in his life? Who was to say that there wasn't one now?

Sesshoumaru gave a long-suffering sigh and she sprang back like she had been burnt. He walked calmly to the door and she felt her heart drop into her feet.

"Come," he said without turning around. "You may enjoy this, but exhibitionism is not a fondness of mine."

Rin blinked, and then suddenly remembered the family. Against better judgment, she looked. Inuyasha was half way between infuriated and awed, Izayoi was smiling, Mr. Taisho was expressionless except that his eyebrows had disappeared under his hairline, and Kagome looked simply startled.

Rin squeaked and fled past Sesshoumaru out the door.

"I will have her home this evening," Sesshoumaru announced calmly, and shut the door behind him. This was a dangerous calm—there was something lurking under that calm, and Rin was terrified to find out what it was.

"We're leaving?" asked Rin, her voice still a squeak.

"Eventually." And he led her down the hall.


	11. Chapter 9: Desperation

_Author's Note: I know it's been a long time since my last update, and this chapter is...sappy, at best. Real life kind of took over, and the only reason I'm posting now is, in fact, because this chapter was already mostly done. The good news, though, is that there are only two chapters left to go!_

_Happy Christmas and happy New Year, everyone!  
_

**Lord of My Dreams**

**9: Desperation**

The library door had barely shut behind them when Sesshoumaru turned on her.

"I see that your refinement has left you, Rin. I had hoped at least that your etiquette lessons were not wasted, but it would seem that I hoped in vain." Rin had never heard Sesshoumaru's voice so hard.

Rin blinked, startled. She had thought that they had reached some sort of understanding, but this did not seem to be the case. Sesshoumaru was opening his mouth again, and anger flared in Rin.

She would not stand like a fish and be berated for a misunderstanding that was as much his fault as hers. "Oh, like you're one to talk! Do you have _any_ idea what your parents are probably thinking now?"

"You forget your place—they are not my parents."

"Yes they _are,_ and your stubborn insistence that they aren't doesn't do you any credit! And what the _hell_ is that supposed to mean, my place?"

"You have no right to stick your nose into my life. "

"Oh yes I do—you may have forgotten, but you gave me the right when you stuck your nose into mine!"

"What a way to thank a person who saved you from abuse and potential rape."

"I never asked you to save me!"

"Obviously. You could not speak."

"Well, it's nice to see that you at least remember _some_ details of our childhoods!"

"I? You think that I forgot? You honestly think that I would- when you…" Rin watched in astonishment as for the first time, Sesshoumaru seemed at a loss for words. And then he spun around to slam his palms onto the closed door on either side of Rin's head, trapping her against it. "_You left me!_"

Rin gulped, and tears welled in her eyes. She had guessed the cause for his anger. Sesshoumaru had just confirmed that her guess had been correct.

Rin reached out to touch his face, but he caught her hands and pushed them away. "I thought it was for the best." Her voice was thick.

Sesshoumaru stared at her. Then the fury that had been radiating from him evaporated, and he looked at her with nothing but regret. "Rin. Had I truly wished to go to Harvard, I would have taken you with me if you wished. Had you wished to stay here, I could have gone alone and left you in Jaken's care."

"But you wouldn't have," Rin whispered. "You told Jaken you'd never leave me alone with him."

"It was not necessary."

Rin stared up at him. _I did what I wanted to do,_ he was telling her.

"I thought—it seemed the right thing to do. And the circumstances were just…matching up."

"I told you not to tell people so that they would not take you away. You used the rule to obtain opposite results."

Rin only could reach out and embrace him.

"Sess?" Rin ventured after a few moments.

"Rin," he replied warily, but did not pull away.

"I don't remember a me before you. My life didn't begin until you."

There was no reaction, and for a moment, Rin closed her eyes and prepared for heartbreak. Then his arms came around her and pulled her close.

"The other day—you were so cold."

"You appeared to have forgotten me."

"But I _hadn't_."

"I made assumptions. That was wrong of me."

Rin looked up in astonishment at the first apology that she had ever heard Sesshoumaru offer. His face was close, and for the first time in years, his eyes were once again those of her friend. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to close the small distance between their lips in a chaste kiss—so that was what she did.

The chaste kiss was over almost as soon as it had begun, but as Rin looked up, Sesshoumaru leaned forward to capture her mouth with his. He kissed her again and again, never seeking more than the touch of her lips against his. The simple feeling of their lips against each other was overwhelming—Rin wasn't certain that she could have handled anymore at that moment.

After some time had passed the pair stood leaning against the door, breathing heavily. Sesshoumaru's head was tucked into Rin's shoulder. It was only then that Rin realized that at some point she had been lifted off the ground, and was now held up only by the arm around her waist. The realization sent a thrill down her spine; her legs moved as though to wrap around his waist before she realized what that might imply and caught herself.

But not in time. Sesshoumaru looked up at her questioningly. Rin's face burned scarlet. Without a word, Sesshoumaru shifted forwards and caught one of her legs under the knee.

"You need not worry," he whispered as he pulled the leg around his hip without letting his eyes leave her. "You need only be you. Do as you wish, always. I will not interpret your actions as invitations unless you make it clear. I will never do anything that you do not desire."

Rin twined her legs around his waist and pulled her arms more tightly about his shoulders. She wondered if she was happier that he seemed to treasure her, or more frustrated that he seemed to find it so easy to resist her. Fresh in her mind was the memory of the dream where she had had but to touch him for him to respond. She had to swallow again before she could convince herself to form the words she wished to say. Even so, they came out weak and childish, half way between a whisper and a squeak.

"Kiss me properly?"

She winced as soon as she said it, positive that Sesshoumaru would find a way to gently disentangle himself from her. She began to loosen her arms and legs, prepared to be set back on her feet. She could _feel_ the heat in her face, and wondered if she wasn't about to catch on fire.

A moment later, she was _positive _that she was going to spontaneously combust. Sesshoumaru had pressed her forwards against the door so hard that it almost hurt, and his lips moved coaxingly against hers. She could only cling to him with all she had; she was almost positive that she heard herself whimper when his tongue swept across the upper lip of her half-open mouth for the first time.

She had experienced such kisses innumerable times in her dreams. She knew in theory how to respond. But even as she reached out her tongue to meet his, she felt clumsy and childish. She found herself wondering how many women he had kissed to perfect kissing to this extent.

He pulled away, and Rin gave a whimper as she followed his mouth with hers. And just like that, his mouth and tongue were back on hers, stroking and coaxing as his arms tightened around her. When at last they drew apart again, it was mutual and they were both breathing heavily.

"So many dreams, Sess," she whispered without ever really deciding to tell him. "I've had so many dreams about you. All in different times and different places, but it was always us."

"I too," replied Sesshoumaru. "That is why I wanted that book-" He broke off and looked at her speculatively. "Rin, what did you dream last night?"

Rin felt her face grow hot. "I was meeting you in a barn. I loved you, Sess, so very much, but I was supposed to marry another in the morning, so you-" He cut off her words with a kiss—a kiss that was tongue and teeth and hands on her body, and while her body flushed at the unfamiliar sensations, her mind remembered the movements from the previous night's dream.

"We have the same dreams," she gasped against his mouth. "Always the same. Sess, you _love_ me."

"You do not do your intelligence any credit if you claim to have only realized that now."

"I knew you cared for me, but you…_love_ me."

"Yes," said Sesshoumaru simply, looking her in the eye. "I love you."

There was nothing more beautiful than Sesshoumaru's eyes just then, Rin thought. She almost opened her mouth to tell him that she loved him too. But she had told him she loved him many times since childhood. This was the first time that Sesshoumaru had even ever said the word "love" in Rin's hearing. Somehow, Rin thought that an "I love you too" would undermine Sesshoumaru's rare words.

So she leaned her forehead against his, met his eyes and smiled, squeezing him with her arms and legs. She dropped a chaste kiss on his mouth—and one turned into two, which turned into three, which then deepened into a river of kisses. Eventually they calmed again, with Sesshoumaru's head in the crook of Rin's neck where he dropped lazy kisses, and Rin's cheek resting against his hair. They stood there that way for a time, simply holding each other, content to just _be_.

"Sess?" whispered Rin.

"Rin," replied Sesshoumaru against her neck.

"We have to do something about that book."

"So we do," agreed Sesshoumaru.

"I don't want to move," Rin whispered in his ear. He raised his head and his arms loosened around her, sliding down her back…over her hips…down her thighs…and then her legs were unwound from his waist and she was plunked on her feet on the floor. She wobbled unsteadily for one startled moment, and Sesshoumaru supported her with an arm around her waist.

"That wasn't very nice of you," she remarked a little crossly, covering the hand on her waist with her own.

"I apologize," said Sesshoumaru with a small smile. "But if I had not done that, I suspect that neither of us would have been willing to leave our positions for quite a while."

"I've waited five years for this," said Rin quietly. "And maybe even lifetimes before that."

"Then you can wait a few hours more," said Sesshoumaru briskly.

"Is it so easy for you to cast me aside?" Rin grumbled. A fraction of a second later, she was swung around and pressed against a bookshelf with Sesshoumaru looking intently down at her.

"_Never,_" said Sesshoumaru. Rin smiled. She tilted her chin up and their lips caught each other's in a slow, promising kiss.

"The book, Rin," Sesshoumaru reminded her when they broke apart.

"In my room," replied Rin, distracted by the sensation of tangling Sesshoumaru's fingers between hers. "At o-ne-san's house."

"Then come," he said, and they left the room and made a beeline for the front door. It crossed Rin's mind that should they run into her—or his—family, she had no idea how to act or what to say. But they made it through the house without running into anyone, and walked out the front gate.

"We're walking?" Rin asked. Sesshoumaru nodded. They walked down the street, hands securely laced.

It felt surreal. Rin walked the whole way to the bus stop with her hand in Sesshoumaru's. She leaned on his shoulder for most of the bus ride, and their hands remained laced as they made their way towards her home after alighting from the bus. Every so often she would wonder if she ought to worry that she would wake—but then she would acknowledge that this felt like nothing else she had ever felt, and know that it was real.

"Does it always feel this exhilarating when you first take a lover?" she asked Sesshoumaru. He stopped and looked at her with dark eyes.

"I wouldn't know," he said, "as you're the first I ever intended to take."

"But your kisses are so…" Rin flushed. "So _good_."

Sesshoumaru all but rolled his eyes. "Of course they are. So are yours. We do have a few lifetimes of experience behind us."

"But I feel so…clumsy," Rin objected.

Sesshoumaru gave her an unreadable look. "Do you mean to tell me that that was truly your first kiss?"

"It wasn't yours," Rin said. She had already known, somehow, but it was hard anyway. "You said only moments ago that I was the only-"

"You were," Sesshoumaru's voice was solid, daring her to doubt him. "You are. But in the beginning—Rin, you were a child. I felt like a pedophile."

"So you took your attentions to others." Rin kept her voice strong, trying to pretend it didn't hurt.

"Only kisses," said Sesshoumaru. "And only a handful of times. Because it felt wrong, kissing a woman who wasn't you."

Rin glanced at their surroundings, which she had been ignoring. They were almost home, she noted. She took Sesshoumaru's hand and dragged him behind her at a half run. At the door, she fumbled in her pockets until she found her key—_thank goodness I brought it_—and the moment the door closed behind them she had swung around to press the older man against the door.

"Kiss me," she said. "Touch me like you've never touched anyone else. Take me—make me yours until you're mine too."

"Rin," said Sesshoumaru sternly. "This is no way for-"

"I don't care!" cried Rin. "Five years I've spent pining after you—but I loved you before that, too. I never even thought of replacing you. How could you expect me to be okay with this?"

"I _never_ replaced you," growled Sesshoumaru, his eyes flashing. "I wanted to distract myself. It never worked. I felt like a pedophile, but I realized that other women as a distraction was not going to help after only a handful of kisses. That should speak for the strength of my devotion, Rin."

"Then show me," said Rin, kissing his mouth as she caught both his hands in hers and placed them on her body.

"Rin," Sesshoumaru protested even as his hands stroked her. "We do not need to rush."

"We won't," Rin assured him even as their clothing was being shed and they were making a beeline for her bedroom. "Just—I need to feel you."

And Sesshoumaru did not protest as they entered her bedroom. He gently lowered her down onto the bed.

* * *

It was perhaps an hour later that they remembered the book.

"Right there, on my desk," said Rin.

"And you are closer to the desk," Sesshoumaru pointed out. Rin gave him a mild glare before darting out from under the covers to the desk. She grabbed the book and clambered back into bed, seeking the warmth of Sesshoumaru's skin against hers. Snuggled up against him, she opened the book.

The page was blank, so she flipped to the next. And the next, and the next after that. She flipped through the whole book then, but saw not a single page with writing on it.

"Invisible ink?" she suggested.

"The more likely explanation is that you were sold a fake," said Sesshoumaru. "Did you not even think to check the book while you were in the shop?"

"The shop keeper flipped through it for me," said Rin defensively. "I was sure I saw what I needed there. It certainly didn't look blank."

Sesshoumaru considered this a moment. Then he moved, forcing Rin to abandon her comfortable position.

"We should go to the shop," he said, picking up his discarded underwear. "And I certainly hope that your sister and her husband aren't back yet, because I believe most of our clothes are still in the halls."

"And on the stairs," Rin giggled.

"It is not amusing," said Sesshoumaru crossly. "We ought to have had more self-control than that."

"Oh, come on," said Rin. "It was fun." And she gave him a peck on the cheek as she passed him on her way to her drawer to at least obtain some underwear before she left the room.

Sesshoumaru caught her hand and when she looked at him, she found herself caught in an intense gaze. "I hope that you don't think of this as something that ends in 'fun,'" he remarked. His tone was light but there was an underlying strength in it. "I don't mean to let you go again."

"Neither do I," smiled Rin, and when she pressed her body flush against his and tilted her head up to him, the kiss they shared was devoid of lust and desperation, filled instead with something deeper and stronger.

They pulled away and resumed their task hunting for their clothes.

"It doesn't sound like they're back," said Rin, and she ran out into the hallway in her underwear to retrieve their carelessly discarded clothes.

They dressed and left the house in minutes, and were back at the pawn shop not long after that.

"This book," said Sesshoumaru, slamming it down on the counter, "is blank."

The pawnshop owner blinked and stared. "What? That cannot be right. This was a very valuable sp- tome! Its contents would not be erased unless rendered invalid by-"

He broke off and his eyes slid past Sesshoumaru to Rin. Narrowing his eyes, he gave a flick of his finger and a bolt of lighting seemed to fall from the ceiling. Rin, directly in the path of the strike, collapsed in its wake.


End file.
